Hitler's Lightning War. "white plan" - the first experience of blitzkrieg
To prepare for an armed attack on Soviet Union German imperialism began long before it was done. The political plan of aggression had long matured in the minds of the fascist leaders, who relentlessly and consistently strove to expand Germany's "living space" and had managed to enslave many European states by that time. And here's how it happened.
Plans for a "German Empire in the East"
The task of forcibly seizing the European part of the USSR in order to form a German empire in continental Europe, Hitler put forward as early as 1927 in his book Mein Kampf, which openly called for a campaign to the East, an attack on the Soviet Union. “If today we are talking about new lands and territories in Europe,” he wrote, “we turn our gaze primarily to Russia.” At the same time, the long-standing claims of Kaiser Germany on the territory of its eastern neighbors were flavored with ardent anti-communism and racist ideology, such as the fact that "destiny itself points its finger at Bolshevik Russia." “The new living space in the East,” declared the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, “opens up a field of activity that has never been larger and more tempting in German history.” To implement Hitler's long-cherished plans for the formation of a German empire in the East by military defeat of the USSR, the "all-destroying" Wehrmacht was created - the most powerful army in the entire capitalist world, generously equipped with the latest military equipment for that time.
Already in the mid-30s, as can be judged from archival materials, as well as official diaries and memoirs of Wehrmacht figures, the political and military leadership of Germany in resolving issues of internal and foreign policy proceeded from option "A", which meant an armed invasion of the USSR.
Those who planned the policy of aggression and determined the solution of the political and economic problems connected with it, naturally experienced a great need for intelligence information. The role of intelligence in the process of strategic planning and decision-making at the state level has grown tremendously. All services of "total espionage" were ordered to speed up the collection of information about the Red Army and the Soviet defense industry in every possible way, to check the data obtained earlier. They were called upon to start creating all the necessary prerequisites for reconnaissance support for the main directions of the future eastern campaign.
The dominant role in this belonged to the Abwehr, who was primarily interested in the strategic military capabilities of our country. Through intelligence channels, the state of defense of the border areas was carefully ascertained, as well as the deployment of military-industrial enterprises, airfields, power plants, transport hubs, railway stations, sea and river ports, bridges, arsenals and warehouses, which, with the outbreak of hostilities, were to become objects of bombing and sabotage .
Since the second half of the 1930s, the Soviet Union has been declared the main opponent of the secret services of fascist Germany. Even the attack on Poland, and then the military campaign in Northern Europe, did not weaken the intelligence interest in our country and did not in the least affect the activity of the Nazi secret services, which continued to be quite high.
Despite the fact that on August 23, 1939, the Soviet-German non-aggression pact was signed, and at the end of September of the same year, the Friendship and Border Treaty between the USSR and Germany was concluded, Hitler considered the military defeat to be his most important task, as before. a socialist state, the conquest of a new "living space" for the Germans up to the Urals.
With the capture of Poland in 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union become neighbors. The presence of a common land border and the fact that the German and our armies were face to face, naturally, made it easier for the Abwehr and the SD to carry out reconnaissance operations against the USSR, allowing them to work by the “close method”. On the side of the Nazi secret services, there was also the undoubted advantage that during the two years of hostilities in Western Europe that preceded the attack on the Soviet Union, they completely fit into the military adventures of the leaders of the Third Reich, accumulated considerable experience in subversive actions in foreign territories, created cadres of professional intelligence officers of the "new school" finally adapted their organizations and tactics of action to wartime conditions. To a certain extent, the expansion of the SD's ability to work against the USSR was also facilitated by the fact that, with the occupation of Poland, the Nazis managed to seize part of the archives of Polish intelligence. At the disposal of Schellenberg, who accompanied Himmler, who ensured the safety of Hitler during his trip to Warsaw, was an extensive card file of the Polish intelligence network abroad, including those located in the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus. Measures were taken to establish the whereabouts of the agents and redirect them to actions in the interests of Nazi Germany.
“From the beginning of the Polish campaign,” writes G. Buchheit, “the Soviet Union fell into the orbit of close attention of the Abwehr. Prior to this, the USSR was more of a political factor, and everything that was connected with it or the communist movement as a whole was considered the competence of the SD. After the capture of Poland, military intelligence, despite the strict border control by the Russians and the language barrier, managed to achieve certain results.
Before intelligence operations against the Soviet Union, associated with undercover penetration into the country, were carried out, according to former leaders of the Abwehr, "irregularly, from time to time, when a real opportunity opened up for this", not associated with great risk and definitely promising success. According to P. Leverkün, at that time to send from Germany to the USSR their proxies and secret agents of the German military intelligence rarely succeeded. It was much easier to cross the Polish border.
By the end of the 30s, the main activities of the Abwehr, which became important integral part military machine of fascist Germany, the starting point of espionage and sabotage operations against the USSR. He was given the task of quickly refreshing the available information about the progress of arming the Red Army and the measures taken by the command to deploy troops in the event of a military threat, about the deployment of headquarters and large formations. Since the difficulties of collecting this kind of information were aggravated, as the Abwehr claimed, by the severe frosts that prevailed in the USSR in the winter of 1939/40, at first German military intelligence was practically unable to find out, at least approximately, the number of Red Army units and their deployment before only on the territory of Belarus, which was considered by the Wehrmacht command as the main theater of future military operations, where, as the Nazis were sure, they would be able to defeat and destroy the main forces of the Soviet troops.
But the untwisted intelligence mechanism was gaining momentum. According to former representatives operational management Wehrmacht Supreme High Command, in a relatively short period of time - from the end of the Polish campaign to June 1940 - the Abwehr managed, using its geographical proximity to the Soviet Union, to update some information about the combat capability of the Red Army. Part of the information obtained concerned the military-industrial facilities and economic centers of the USSR, the increased interest in which was caused by the need to create favorable conditions for solving the problem of the second stage of hostilities, when the war, as the Nazi elite planned, was supposed to move from the phase of the destruction of the Red Army to the phase of economic suppression of the country. Even before the winter of 1941, this assumed the capture during the pursuit of the remnants of the retreating Red Army, or at least the destruction of the main vital industrial and economic centers (Moscow, Leningrad, Donbass, the oil regions of the North Caucasus), necessary to recreate the defeated armed forces. However, according to eyewitness accounts, Admiral Canaris was able to provide only limited and sometimes inaccurate information, because “Abwehr agents were invariably neutralized in the SSSL. According to the confessions of the leaders of the Abwehr, the representations of German military intelligence in Krakow, Ljubljana and Koenigsberg, with all their efforts, "failed to penetrate deep into Russia."
The sharp increase in intelligence activity against the Soviet Union dates back to the moment of the capitulation of France, when, in the opinion of the top Nazi leadership, the rear of a future war was reliably provided and Germany had at its disposal enough material and human resources to continue hostilities. After all, as you know, after the end of the war with France, Germany was not weakened in military and economic terms. Its armed forces retained their combat effectiveness, and the military industry, which was able to put the economic potential of 12 captured states of Europe at its service, worked at full capacity. But the matter is not only and not so much in the capitulation of France. In essence, all the criminal acts of aggression by Hitlerite Germany before June 22, 1941, connected with the forcible subjugation of other countries to its domination, were nothing more than a preparatory stage for an armed attack on the Soviet Union. Hitler wanted to ensure for his troops the most advantageous strategic positions that would allow him to confidently and without great risk begin the fight against the Soviet country. To do this, he annexed Austria, dismembered Czechoslovakia, attacked Poland, then tried to disable France in order to provide himself with a reliable rear. In short, Hitler decided to take advantage of the favorable outcome of the war in the West and, without making a long pause, suddenly move the already wound up military machine, accustomed to easy victories for two years, towards the Soviet Union, in order, as the Nazis hoped, to achieve decisive success in a short campaign. The content of Hitler's conversation with Keitel and Jodl immediately after the end of the French campaign of 1940 is known, in which he stated: “Now we have shown what we are capable of. Believe me, a campaign against Russia will be a simple child's game in comparison with this.
Hitler's generals, guided by the instructions of the Fuhrer, given at a secret meeting on November 23, 1939, began to develop appropriate strategic plans.
In the summer of 1940 and at the beginning of 1941, preparations for armed aggression against the USSR acquired a particularly wide scope, becoming complex in the full sense of the word. It covered the economic, diplomatic and ideological spheres, and especially the military and intelligence ones.
This is understandable: the Soviet Union was the main obstacle for German imperialism on the way to extending its unlimited domination to other countries and peoples. Hitler understood that the guarantee of establishing dominion over Europe, which he aspired to, depended decisively on the outcome of the German-Soviet war.
A complete picture of the planning and preparation of aggression against the USSR was revealed later, when the materials of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, memoirs of political and military figures, heads of intelligence services, as well as documents from secret archives were published.
German blitz plan
As already mentioned, according to the instructions of the leader of the Nazi Party, Hitler and his accomplices, armed aggression against the USSR was to be a special “war for living space in the East”, during which they did not even think to reckon with the civilian population. In this aggressive war, stakes were openly placed on the physical extermination of the majority of Soviet people. The criminal intentions of the German imperialists in relation to the Soviet people were recorded in the so-called "master plan" "Ost", the author of which was the main imperial security department.
In May 1940, the plan, which grew with each new discussion with additional ideas and details, was presented to Hitler “as the Führer and Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht” and approved by him as a directive that obliged the German command to prevent the planned withdrawal of Soviet troops during military operations and achieve complete depletion of the military and military-industrial potential of the USSR. Thus, the question of unleashing armed aggression against the Soviet Union had already been decided by that time in higher spheres Nazi Party and Wehrmacht generals and moved into the field of practical preparations for the invasion, in which essential role was called to play intelligence.
A clearly smoothed mechanism for planning military operations and working out specific options for their conduct was again launched in July 1940. In accordance with Hitler's order, and taking into account the guidelines developed by the RSHA, as well as intelligence information provided by the Abwehr and the SD, Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces, Field Marshal Brauchitsch, undertook the final polishing of a detailed strategic and tactical plan for attacking the Soviet Union, which was being worked on in a situation the strictest secrecy. Subsequently, this plan, developed by the RSHA with the active participation of the central apparatus of the Abwehr and its groups at the headquarters of the branches of the armed forces, was subjected to scrupulous study and clarification at the highest military authorities. At the end of July 1940, Hitler gathered all his top generals at the Berghof. At this meeting, the goals of the war were clearly defined and the timing of the troops' march was determined. Summing up the results of this meeting, Hitler said: “Russia must be destroyed. Deadline - spring 1941. The operation will only make sense if we defeat the country with one blow. Thus, the aggression against the Soviet Union was planned and prepared as a lightning-fast military campaign, which, as Hitler emphasized, could be victoriously completed thanks to the element of surprise.
In the same place, in Berghof, the Fuhrer's directive was brought to the leaders of the Abwehr and the SD: using undercover channels, to probe the possibility of obtaining the consent of Finland and Turkey to become Germany's allies. To encourage these countries to enter the war, Hitler was ready to cede some territories of the USSR to them "after the victorious conclusion of the campaign" in the East.
There is a lot of documentary evidence of how intensive the preparation of Nazi Germany for the war with the Soviet Union was. “At the end of September 1940,” said General Zukertor, who held an important post in the Wehrmacht, “I personally had the opportunity to make sure that preparations for an attack on the USSR were in full swing. I then visited the Chief of Staff of Army Group C, commanded by Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb. At the same time, by pure chance, a huge map fell into my field of vision with a plan for the deployment of German troops in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Soviet border and their attack on the Soviet Union. The location of the German units and the objectives of each offensive were indicated there.
No less weighty are the confessions made on this score by General Pickenbrock: “I must say that already from August - September 1940, the flow of reconnaissance tasks for the Abwehr in the Soviet Union began to noticeably increase from August - September 1940 ... These tasks, of course, were connected with the preparation of the war against Russia. The Wehrmacht Intelligence and Counterintelligence Directorate, Pikenbrock argued, “already from September 6, 1940, with all its might, was preparing an attack on the SSSL in all areas of espionage and subversion.
Evidence of the active participation of the Abwehr in the planning and preparation of armed aggression against the Soviet Union was also cited in the testimony of General Franz von Bentivenyi given by him at the Nuremberg trials. According to Bentivegni's testimony, in August 1940, Canaris warned him in strict confidentiality that Hitler had come to grips with the implementation of the plan for the campaign to the East, that the formations of German troops were gradually being secretly transferred from the west to the eastern borders and were deployed at the starting positions of the upcoming invasion of Russia. Informing about this, the head of the Abwehr proposed to immediately begin creating the prerequisites for the widespread deployment of intelligence work on the territory of the USSR, paying special attention to the importance of collecting information that would allow predicting the possible pace of quantitative and qualitative buildup of the Red Army, as well as the actual timing of the reorientation and practical translation Soviet industry to solve military problems.
General Pickenbrock testified at the same trial in Nuremberg that at the end of December 1940, together with Admiral Canaris, he was at the next report from Field Marshal Keitel in Brechsgaden. At the end of the report, the Chief of Staff of the Operational Command of the Wehrmacht High Command, Colonel General Jodl, invited them to his office and announced that in the summer of 1941 Germany would start a war with Russia. A few days later, Canaris warned Pickenbrock that the attack on the USSR was scheduled for May 15th. In January 1941, Canaris, at a meeting of the heads of departments of the Abwehr, specified the date for the speech of the German troops.
In the archives where captured materials of Nazi Germany are stored, reports were found by the head of the Abwehr II department, General Lahousen, addressed personally to Canaris, from which it follows that this department, like other Abwehr units, was inextricably linked with the preparation of fascist aggression against our country.
Role German intelligence in terms of Barbarossa
After a single point of view was developed on all the main issues of waging war against the USSR and the most important decisions were made in this regard, on December 18, 1940, Hitler signed the famous Directive No. 21 on the attack on the Soviet Union (Plan Barbarossa). Preparations for aggression were ordered to be completed by May 15, 1941. The directive was so secret that only nine copies were printed. Only a relatively small group of generals and officers of the high command and the heads of intelligence agencies were privy to the secret strategic plans for the war. The directive contained an order for the German armed forces to be ready "even before the end of the war with England, to defeat Russia with a quick blow." Hitler was firmly convinced that he could crush the Soviet Union as a result of one fleeting operation.
The goal of the campaign was formulated as follows: “In the north, a quick exit to Moscow - the capture of the capital in political and economic terms has crucial". “The capture of this city,” the Barbarossa plan emphasized, “means a decisive success both from a political and economic point of view, not to mention the fact that the Russians in this case will lose the most important railway junction.” The Nazis hoped that with the fall of Moscow they would be able to paralyze the functioning of the apparatus of state power, deprive it of the possibility of restoring the defeated armed forces and, thus, the fate of the bloody battle would be decided - the Soviet Union would capitulate to Germany, and the war would quickly end.
Alfred Rosenberg, the chief ideologue of the Nazi Party and the newly appointed "Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories," wrote of the finale of the war: in order to secure the possibility of freely administering German world politics and guarantee the danger of the Reich ... Therefore, a war with the aim of creating an indivisible Russia is excluded. The task of Germany, said the head of the Nazi punitive apparatus Reichsführer SS Himmler, "is not only the division of Russia into small states, but also the expansion of the German sphere of influence far beyond the Urals."
Following Directive No. 21 and in pursuance of it, detailed instructions were issued to the "total espionage" services, which were charged with the duty, first of all, to maximize the collection of intelligence data about the USSR. Their main interest was concentrated around finding out the production capacities of the defense industry for the deployment of military production and the development of new, advanced models of military equipment and the timing of their adoption. They were also given the task of ensuring the planting of “strongholds” on Soviet territory along the path of the upcoming advance of the German troops by bringing their agents into the country by the time of the attack on the Soviet Union.
In the winter and spring of 1941, preparations for the invasion reached a climax. By this time, all the main links of the military and intelligence departments of fascist Germany were involved in it. Brauchitsch and Halder held continuous meetings. The commanders-in-chief of the army groups, their chiefs of staff, and the leaders of the Abwehr were invited here every now and then. Representatives of the Finnish, Romanian and Hungarian armies visited one after another. The headquarters coordinated and refined plans for military operations. February 20, 1941 at the General Staff ground forces there was a discussion of the operational plans of the army groups, which were found to be quite acceptable. General Halder wrote that day in his official diary: "Our joint discussion was crowned with the best results."
In the headquarters of army groups in February - March 1941, numerous exercises and military maneuvers took place, at which possible options actions of troops and the order of organization of their supply. A big war game with the participation of the Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces, General Halder, the commanders and chiefs of staff of the armies, was held at the headquarters of Army Group A (South) in Saint-Germain near Paris; the actions of Guderian's tank group were played separately. After completion, the plans of army groups and individual armies were reported to Hitler on March 17, 1941. "The attack on Russia," said the Fuhrer, considering these plans, "will begin as soon as our concentration and deployment is over. It will take about a week ... It will be a massive offensive of the highest class. Perhaps the most powerful of all that history has ever known. The case with Napoleon will not be repeated ... "
Exercising unremitting control over the planning of offensive operations of army groups and armies, the General Staff constantly demanded that the Abwehr provide information on the quantitative and qualitative indicators characterizing the Armed Forces of the USSR, on the state of the Soviet economy, transport system, investment in defense industries, composition and equipment of military equipment groupings of the Red Army on the western borders, the nature of the fortifications in the border districts. The aerial photographic reconnaissance department of the Air Force headquarters systematically surveyed the border regions of the USSR. However, despite the efforts made by Admiral Canaris and the head of the department of the Foreign Armies of the East, Colonel Kinzel, to activate the German intelligence network abroad, they failed to ensure the flow of accurate and reliable information to the extent that the General Staff would suit. In the diary of General Halder, there are often notes indicating the lack of clarity in the overall picture of the deployment of Soviet troops, the lack of reliable information about the fortifications, etc. General Blumentritt, who was then close to the Wehrmacht high command, complained that in preparation for war it was very difficult to form any accurate idea of Soviet Russia and its armed forces.
The role of German intelligence in ensuring the surprise attack on the USSR
As in the development of the infamous Barbarossa plan, so in its implementation, the German General Staff and the services of "total espionage" relentlessly followed Hitler's "fundamental concept". The Fuhrer expressed the essence of this concept before the invasion of the territory of the USSR in the following words: “One single blow must destroy the enemy. Air raids, unheard of in their massiveness, sabotage, terror, acts of sabotage, assassination attempts, assassinations of leaders, crushing attacks on all weak points of the enemy defense suddenly in one and the same second ... I will stop at nothing. No so-called international law will prevent me from using the advantage that is given to me.
Thus, the main orientation of the Nazi elite in preparing for the war against the USSR contained an indispensable requirement that the blow be delivered in conditions of strategic surprise, which would put the Soviet troops in a critical situation.
It was supposed in a relatively short time to pull up from the west and concentrate along the entire border of the USSR an almost five million army with a huge number of tanks, guns, vehicles and other modern military equipment. The General Staff, in accordance with Hitler's directive, already on July 6, 1940, began an intensive transfer of troops and equipment from west to east.
The statistics that later became known showed that if on July 21, 1940 in Poland and East Prussia there were 15 divisions, then by October 7 there were already 30, and a week later, that is, on October 15, General Halder wrote in his service diary: “Now we have 40 on the Russian border, and soon there will be 100 divisions.” From January 1941, the scale of the transfer increased dramatically, and in March-April, echelons with German troops and equipment went to the Soviet borders in a continuous stream. Since May, the Wehrmacht command began to send up to 100 echelons per day to the eastern borders according to the military schedule. Only from France to Poland it was necessary to redeploy several armies numbering about 500 thousand people. By mid-June, the deployment of the German invasion army was practically over. Fascist Germany, which had been preparing for a long time to strike at the Soviet Union, by this moment had concentrated enormous armed forces near the western borders, which had taken their starting positions for the attack. In total, they included 190 fully equipped divisions (together with satellites), 3,500 tanks, 4,000 aircraft, 50,000 guns and mortars. On the territory of Poland, the construction of roads and bridges began, warehouses were erected, supplies were prepared, the communications system and air defense were improved.
In order to be able to attack the Soviet Union suddenly, it was important to do everything covertly, in deep secrecy, and for this, as planned, resort to the use of a whole range of tricks and methods of disguise inherent in the aggressor. A strictly limited circle of people was privy to the plans for an attack on the USSR, carefully guarded by the Nazi counterintelligence. By a special directive, Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht headquarters and the leaders of the secret services, primarily the Abwehr and the SD, to provide cover for the German advance to the east and, as far as possible, make it invisible. In pursuance of this directive, the headquarters of the operational leadership, back in early September 1940, issued a document with the following content, addressed to the leadership of the Abwehr:
"Supreme Command Headquarters of the Fuhrer 6. 9. 1940
Headquarters of operational management 7 copies.
Department of Defense of the country, copy. No. 4
No. 33264/40 Top secret
For command only
In the coming weeks, the concentration of troops in the east will increase significantly. By the end of October, it is necessary to achieve the position indicated on the attached map. The regroupings at (the borders of) Russia should by no means give the impression that we are preparing an offensive to the east. At the same time, Russia must understand that there are strong and combat-ready German troops in the General Government, in the eastern provinces and in the protectorate, and draw the conclusion from this that we are ready at any moment with sufficiently powerful forces to defend our interests in the Balkans in the event of a Russian intervention.
In the work of our own intelligence, as well as in possible responses to Russian requests, one should be guided by the following basic fundamental provisions.
1. Mask, if possible, the total number of German troops in the east by spreading rumors and news about the supposedly intensive replacement of military formations taking place in this area. Movements of troops should be justified by their transfer to training camps, reorganization, etc.
2. To create the impression that the main direction in our movements falls on the southern regions of the General Government, on the protectorate and Austria, and that the concentration of troops in the north is relatively small.
3. Overestimate the level and assessment of the state of armament of formations, especially tank divisions.
4. Distribute appropriately selected information to create the impression that after the end of the western campaign, air defense in the east direction has become much more effective and that the anti-aircraft defense of all important objects is being strengthened by captured French equipment.
5. To explain the work on improving the network of highways and railways and airfields by the need to develop the newly conquered eastern regions, referring to the fact that they are being carried out at a normal pace and pursue mainly economic goals.
To what extent individual authentic data, for example, on the numbering of regiments, the number of garrisons, etc., can be transferred to the Abwehr for use in counterintelligence purposes, the main command of the ground forces decides.
For the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Yodl."
Hitler's directive, dated January 31, 1941, emphasized that the advance of concentrated troops to the border should take place at the last moment and be unexpected for the enemy. As in all previous military operations of Nazi Germany, this was done with the aim of taking the victim of aggression by surprise, depriving her of the opportunity to prepare to repel the attack.
The highly experienced Admiral Cana-ris, who knew all the moves and exits, all the springs and levers of the Nazi government apparatus, directed and coordinated the actions of various departments of the Reich to ensure secrecy and operational-strategic camouflage of the prepared armed aggression. It was the head of the intelligence and counterintelligence department of the Wehrmacht, turned into the main center of disinformation, who was instructed to comprehensively think over and resolve the issue of a mechanism for disseminating false information about the forces and means that should be used in order to hide the scale of the transfer of troops to the borders of the USSR, mislead the public opinion both inside Germany and outside it and thus divert attention from the criminal intentions of the Nazi elite.
As the International Military Tribunal later established, the Nazi elite considered ensuring the surprise of an armed attack on the Soviet Union as an indispensable condition for the rapid defeat of the Red Army directly on the western borders. Naturally, this area of activity of the Abwehr became one of the most important on the eve of the outbreak of war.
A group of professionals from the intelligence and counterintelligence department of the Wehrmacht, in accordance with the order of the Supreme High Command of August 26, 1940, entrusting the Abwehr with the task of "carefully disguising the concentration and deployment of German troops on the German-Soviet border", based on the experience already gained, proposed a set of practical measures for disinformation . Since these measures affected many aspects of the life of the Reich, they were considered and approved by Hitler himself.
First of all, it was considered necessary to maintain the appearance of good neighborly relations between Germany and the Soviet Union. All political actions carried out at that time to put together an anti-Soviet military bloc had to be kept in the strictest secrecy. In a decision taken at a meeting with Hitler on February 3, 1941, it was expressly stated that agreements with neighboring states participating in the operation could not be concluded as long as there was any need for disguise. German representatives in negotiations with the allies of aggression were forbidden to touch on the details of the Barbarossa plan. A limited number of people were involved in the preliminary activities for the implementation of this plan. At the same time, the protection of the borders with the USSR was strengthened. All residents suspected of sympathizing with the Soviet country were evicted from the German border strip. Counterintelligence work was widely deployed in the places of concentration of German troops. In Germany itself and in the countries occupied by it, all those who could potentially threaten the secrecy of military preparations by their actions were taken under the control of counterintelligence agencies. A special government order of April 2, 1940 categorically prohibited all types of communication with countries declared hostile to Nazi Germany. Movement between the Reich and the territory occupied by German troops was limited. A special permit was required for permanent or temporary exit from these territories to Germany and back. A number of regulations were issued aimed at tightening the passport regime, the conditions for the stay of foreigners in Germany, etc.
The coordinated and methodical implementation of these measures was intended to confuse people and, thus, put Soviet intelligence on the wrong track, making it difficult to "figure out the intention of the Germans to attack." Curious generalizing evidence on this subject is given in the memoirs of V. Schellenberg. “The hour of the great general offensive,” he wrote. - became noticeably closer. A lot of effort was required to mask our action against Russia. Particularly threatened places had to be protected from spies - marshalling yards and border crossings. In addition, it was necessary to block the information channels of the enemy; we only used them to spread misinformation, such as moving troops and supplies west to prepare for a renewed Operation Sea Lion. How much the Soviets believed in this disinformation can be judged by the fact that as early as June 21, the Russian infantry battalions stationed in the Brest-Litovsk citadel were engaged in drill training to the music.
Hitler's secret directive on disinformation of the USSR
On February 15, 1941, Hitler issues a new top-secret "Directive on Disinformation", obliging the main headquarters of the German armed forces and the Abwehr to take additional measures to strengthen the camouflage of preparations for Operation Barbarossa in order to avoid revealing them to Soviet intelligence.
Justifying in this directive the significance of the disinformation campaign for delivering a surprise strike with powerful strategic reserves, Hitler indicated that it would go through two closely related stages.
At the first stage (approximately from February 15 to April 16, 1941), the main content of the campaign was to be a set of disinformation measures aimed at convincing Soviet intelligence that the regrouping of German forces was not connected with their concentration in the eastern part of the country, but represents the usual systematic "exchange" of troops. Everything had to look like this, as if some formations were being withdrawn to the east for rest and study, and fresh troops stationed there were being pulled up with guns and equipment to the west in connection with the upcoming Operation Marita (invasion of Yugoslavia). To solve the problems of this stage, the main headquarters of the Wehrmacht was instructed, in particular, to determine how long the expected transportation of military units by rail could be given out as a normal exchange of troops in the area.
At the second stage (from April 1941 to the moment of the invasion of German troops into the territory of the USSR), the strategic deployment of the armed forces was to be portrayed as a disinformation maneuver, supposedly undertaken in order to lull the British vigilance, divert their attention from the ongoing preparations for the invasion of the British Isles . At this stage, the Abwehr had to decide how and using what channels to promote the false information to Soviet intelligence that the German navy and air force, which had recently refrained from participating in hostilities, were accumulating forces before a large-scale decisive attack on England. For this, as the former deputy head of the Abwehr II, Colonel Stolze, testified, “it was planned to transfer a significant part of the German navy to ports on the French and German coasts of the North Sea, as well as the concentration of air formations on French airfields.” Immediately before the attack on the Soviet Union, it was supposed to start moving German ships towards England in order to create the appearance of the beginning of an operation to land on the British Isles. All this, taken together, should have confirmed the main thesis that in 1941 the main goal of the Nazi command was the defeat of England. Such actions as the adaptation of schools, theaters, institutions on the northwestern and northern coasts of France to accommodate troops and hospitals, the creation of naval bases in the ports of Palis and Bordeaux, and the eviction of residents of the cities of the northern coast of France were also calculated to mislead Soviet intelligence.
At the same time, the “Directive on Disinformation” prescribed: “Despite the significant decrease in activity in the implementation of Operation Sea Lion, everything possible must be done to ensure that the conviction grows in one’s own troops that preparations for a landing in England are continuing, although the troops intended for this withdrawn to a certain point in the rear. It was also important, the directive stressed, to keep as long as possible misleading about the actual intentions even those troops selected for participation in hostilities directly on the Eastern Front.
At the beginning of May 1941, in Krampnitz, near Potsdam, under the chairmanship of the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Operational Command of the Wehrmacht, General Warlimont, a special meeting was held to consider the extent to which the impending attack on the USSR was camouflaged and what should be done to enhance its effectiveness at the final stage. prepared aggression. This representative meeting was attended by senior officers of the headquarters of the operational leadership, the head of the Wehrmacht department, Colonel Rudolf, the leaders of the Abwehr Lahousen and Stolze, high-ranking officials from the command of the branches of the armed forces.
In a program of disinformation measures designed to create the desired overall picture, special place took action, with the help of which Hitler managed to mislead the top Soviet leadership. As it became known, at the beginning of 1941, when, despite the precautions taken, the flow of signals emanating from various sources about the concentration of large formations of German troops in Poland increased especially strongly, J.V. Stalin, concerned about this, addressed a personal message to Hitler, in which he wrote that it seemed that Germany was going to fight against the Soviet Union. In response, Hitler sent a letter to I. V. Stalin, also of a personal nature and, as he emphasized in the text, "confidential." Hitler did not deny that large military formations were indeed concentrated in Poland. But at the same time, he argued, being sure that this revelation of his would not go further than Stalin, that the concentration of German troops on Polish territory pursued other goals and was in no way directed against Soviet country. And in general, he intends to strictly observe the concluded non-aggression pact, in which he vouches for his honor as head of state. In a “confidential” letter to Stalin, Hitler found an argument that, as Marshal G.K. Zhukov later said, Stalin apparently believed: the Fuhrer wrote that the territory of Western and Central Germany “is subjected to powerful British bombardments and is clearly visible from the air. Therefore, he was forced to withdraw large contingents of troops to the East ... ". And he did it as if with the aim of being able to covertly rearm and reorganize them there, in Poland, before a decisive attack on England.
In a word, everything was done to strengthen the Soviet leadership in the opinion that the concentration of large German troops on the German-Soviet border was just a distracting maneuver in connection with the measures under the Sea Lion plan and that before the defeat of England, at least until the middle 1942, Hitler will not be able to turn troops to the east. And, as we now know, the Nazis quite succeeded in this and cost our army and people dearly. As a result of the enormous blow planned by Hitler, which turned out to be completely unexpected for the Soviet leadership, only 1200 aircraft were destroyed on the very first day of the war, with the vast majority at the airfields. This blow could not but cause a certain nervous shock in our troops.
So, although the general meaning of the campaign was to disorientate public opinion and hide preparations for an armed attack behind the “smoke screen” created, the main camouflage actions developed in two directions.
The first was aimed at impressing the people and the army of their own country that Germany was really seriously preparing for a landing on the coast of the British Isles and generally intended to start a "big war" against England. (True, back in July 1940 and later, Hitler repeatedly expressed the idea among his close associates that the landing operation was a very risky undertaking and that it could be resorted to only if no other ways were found to crush England.) Moreover, although in practice Hitler abandoned this idea long ago, it continued to be used quite widely as a means of disinformation. And, as it later became known, not without success: the reality of the landing plans was believed both in Germany itself and abroad.
The second direction, as will be seen from the further presentation, contained a whole range of measures related to the dissemination of false information about the threat to the security of the Reich allegedly emanating from the Soviet Union.
Acceptance of Germany with preventive war
History convinces us that every aggressor government strives at all costs to misinform the world community, to create the appearance that it is being forced into direct military action by circumstances - the interests of self-defense. It is perhaps difficult to find a case when any state would openly and frankly admit that it decided on unprovoked aggression, on unleashing a war for the sake of conquering foreign territories. A feature of Hitler's military strategy was, first of all, that an armed attack on other countries was carried out without a declaration of war, but with the active use of provocations arranged by intelligence, started with the sole purpose of obtaining a pretext for aggression. After all, the Hitlerite government claimed that the conflict with Poland was provoked by it, and the reason for the war, the Nazis declared a ridiculous desire "to prevent the encirclement of Germany." Along with the action we have described in Gliwice, the Nazis were preparing another similar provocation at the same time. As it turned out during the investigation into the case of a terrorist agent detained in Warsaw, sent by the SD, several scouts entered Poland from Germany in the second half of August 1939 with the task of killing peasants from the German national minority so that Berlin could blame the Poles for this .
To justify the capture by the Nazi troops in April 1940 of Denmark and Norway, the most clumsy version you can think of was launched: they tried to present this outright aggression as a "measure of protection" of these countries from the invasion of the British. At the same time, the Abwehr and SD, whose actions were based on the same patented method of the German attack, were asked not to give grounds for concluding that Germany was trying to create strongholds here for its future military operations.
“We will continue to tell the whole world,” Hitler declared, “that we were forced to capture a certain area in order to ensure order and security.” And in subsequent years, the Nazi leaders justified their aggressive policy in a similar way. It was exactly the same during the attack of fascist Germany on the Soviet Union. Acting on a Hitler-approved disinformation program, Canaris launches a deliberate campaign to spread false rumors about an allegedly growing threat to the security of the Reich from the Soviet Union, whose armed forces are "ready to launch a preemptive strike against Germany." As if “it was precisely the military preparations of the USSR that confronted Hitler with the need to take measures to strengthen the defense in the East, forced him to resort to a“ radical response to the impending danger.
Since the disinformation campaign was of the utmost importance, everything connected with it was constantly in the center of attention of Hitler himself and the Wehrmacht High Command. The mass media, diplomatic correspondence, as well as the agent network of Nazi intelligence abroad were widely used to spread the necessary rumors. The disinformation worked out in the bowels of the Abwehr was supplied to German military missions in neutral countries and the military attachés of these countries in Berlin. The headquarters of the operational leadership of the Wehrmacht specifically instructed the Abwehr to mislead the Soviet military attache in Berlin in order to divert his attention from the movements of German troops near the border of the Soviet Union.
The actions of the Nazi “total espionage” services were limited to “supporting” with concrete facts and making public the version of the preventive nature of the attack on the USSR, thereby contributing to the solution of the main task set by Hitler: to shift the responsibility for the bloody conflict to the Soviet government. For example, in the "weekly review" very popular at that time in Germany (weekly newsreels. - F. S.) employees of the propaganda department of the Wehrmacht invariably showed footage showing Soviet troops and the equipment of the Red Army. The Nazis made no secret of the fact that this measure was calculated to give the impression "how great is the danger coming from the East." Declaring that “today there are 150 Russian divisions on our border” and that “Moscow, by deploying its forces, violated the provisions of the friendship treaty by committing a“ vile betrayal ”, the Nazis, in confirmation, staged the statements of“ Soviet officers ”about the allegedly undertaken training“ planned Soviet offensive.
Summing up some of the results of the widely launched disinformation campaign on the eve and during the invasion, in which, along with the Abwehr, the main imperial security department also took an active part, the chief of the latter, Heydrich, reported on July 7, 1941: “According to reports, the idea that from the Soviet Union came a kind of "threat" to the Reich and that the Fuhrer struck again at the right time.
Now it is known for certain that the intense disorientation, combined with the secrecy of the transfer and concentration of troops, allowed the German command to achieve tangible results in ensuring the surprise of the invasion of the territory of the USSR and thereby guarantee itself obvious advantages in the initial period of the war.
Summarizing the above, we can conclude that the top leaders of the Nazi regime, who did not take into account international legal norms and even showed complete disregard for them, resorted to various methods of masking their expansionist plans with the help of the Abwehr and the SD, did everything in order to shift responsibility for unleashing war on others. The explanation for this, obviously, should be sought primarily in the fact that although war at that time was considered a legitimate means of implementing politics, however, in world public consciousness, only a defensive war was recognized as justified. Aggressive war was outlawed by international law.
The second, no less significant circumstance, noted by Western authors so far, is that the leaders of the Third Reich were aware of the danger that the recognition of the aggressive nature of their own aspirations would adversely affect the morale of the soldiers of the Wehrmacht and allies. Was it possible to reveal to the world, to one's own people, that we are talking about the physical extermination of millions of people, the seizure of foreign lands and wealth. On the day of the sudden attack on our country, Hitler, as the Fuhrer and Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht, in the order-appeal "To the soldiers of the Eastern Front", who entered the war against the Soviet Union, inspired that the USSR was pursuing an aggressive policy and now Germany was forced to take retaliatory actions. “The main thing is,” Hitler told his accomplices on July 16, 1941, “not to tell the whole world about our goals. It is not necessary. It is important that we ourselves know what we want.”
Information about the German attack on the USSR
It is now reliably known that the task that the political leadership of the Reich set for Nazi intelligence - to hide from the outside world the preparations of Nazi Germany to attack the Soviet Union - she failed to solve.
Soviet state security agencies, border troops, military intelligence not only correctly assessed the military-strategic plans of Hitlerism, but also at the right time turned out to be aware of the concentration of Nazi troops on the western border, quite accurately determined the expected dates for the start of hostilities. Since the summer of 1940, they regularly provided the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Soviet government with information on the course of Nazi Germany's military preparations against the USSR. It is enough to refer at least to firmly established facts and authentic documents kept in the archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Committee of State Security and the Ministry of Defense of the USSR.
Let's look at them chronologically. Back in the middle of 1940, the property of Soviet foreign policy intelligence became information that the German Ministry of Railways, on the instructions of the Wehrmacht General Staff, was engaged in calculating the throughput and finding out other possibilities of railways in connection with the upcoming transfer of troops from the Western to the Eastern theater of military operations that was being prepared.
On August 9, 1940, it became known that “underground structures and artillery fortifications are being built on the coast of the Baltic Sea from Stettin and Swinemünde to Memel. Fortifications are built in the forests and are well camouflaged. In the port of Swinemünde, new berths equipped with the latest technology have been built, access roads and berths are hidden under water in concreted channels. Moorings for ships with a large draft are being built in the Memel Canal. At night, in Memel, German troops are drawn up to the Lithuanian border. German officers and soldiers and Germans living in Memel study Russian and practice Russian colloquial speech… » .
In October 1940, based on materials received from Soviet intelligence agents "Sergeant" and "Corsican" (German anti-fascists who worked in general staff Air Force and the German Ministry of Economy), the authorities were informed about the military preparations of Germany. “...“ Corsican ”... - indicated in this message, - in a conversation with an officer of the headquarters of the high command, I learned that at the beginning of next year Germany would start a war against the Soviet Union ... The purpose of the war is to seize part of the European territory of the USSR from Leningrad to the Black Sea from the Soviet Union and the creation on this territory of a state entirely dependent on Germany ... An officer of the headquarters of the supreme command (department of military attaches), the son of the former minister of colonies ... told our source ... (a former Russian prince, connected with the military German and Russian circles) that, according to information, received by him at the headquarters of the high command, in about six months Germany will start a war against the Soviet Union.
On November 6, the state security organs of the USSR presented a generalized certificate of Germany's military preparations as of October 15, 1940. The certificate, in particular, stated that in total over 85 divisions were concentrated against the Soviet Union, that is, more than one third of the ground forces of the German army. Characteristically, it was emphasized in the certificate, that the bulk of infantry formations (up to 6 divisions) and all tank and motorized divisions are located in a dense grouping in the border zone with the USSR. In addition, 12-13 divisions (including two tank divisions) in Austria, 5-6 infantry divisions in the Czech Republic and Moravia and 6-8 infantry divisions in Norway.
On December 25, 1940, the military attache at the Soviet embassy in Berlin received an anonymous letter about the impending attack by fascist Germany on the USSR, outlining the plan of military operations. As subsequent events showed, this plan was close to reality.
At the same time, Soviet intelligence informed the government of the essential details of the "Plan Barbarossa", the proposed deployment of German military forces near the Soviet western borders. The information, simultaneously sent to the General Staff of the USSR, said: “Germany's action against the Soviet Union has been finally decided and will follow soon. The operational plan of the offensive provides for a lightning strike on Ukraine and further advance to the east ... "
Information about the preparation of the Germans for the war against the USSR
In February 1941, Soviet intelligence became aware of Hitler's intention to postpone the invasion of the British Isles until the end of the military campaign in the east. A few days later, information was obtained about a confidential meeting between the Romanian military fascist dictator Antonescu and a prominent German official Bering, during which the details of Romania's participation in anti-Soviet aggression were discussed.
Then, in February 1941, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks sent a message received from Berlin from the "Corsican" that "the military economic department of the German statistical office received an order from the high command to draw up maps of the location of industrial enterprises of the USSR by regions » . The maps were supposed to serve as an orientation when choosing objects of aerial bombardment and sabotage operations.
At the beginning of March 1941, a Soviet intelligence agent in Berlin, through an official of the committee on the four-year plan, obtained information that a group of committee workers had been given the task to urgently draw up calculations of the stocks of raw materials and food that Germany could receive as a result of the occupation of the European part of the USSR. The same source said that the Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces, General Halder, was counting on unconditional success and lightning-fast occupation by the German troops of the Soviet Union and, above all, Ukraine, where, according to Halder, the good condition of the railways and highways would contribute to the success of the operation. Halder also considers the occupation of Baku and its oil fields to be an easy task, which the Germans supposedly will be able to quickly restore after the destruction from hostilities. According to Halder, the Red Army will not be able to provide adequate resistance to the lightning-fast offensive of the German troops and the Russians will not even have time to destroy the reserves. On March 6, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the People's Commissariat of Defense were informed about the materials presented.
On March 11, 1941, the data received by our counterintelligence from the British embassy in Moscow were brought to the attention of the authorities. According to these data, “On March 6, the British Ambassador Cripps called a press conference, which was attended by British and American correspondents Chollerton, Lovell, Cassidy, Duranty, Shapiro and Magidov. Warning those present that his information was confidential and not to be used for publication, Cripps made the following statement: “…Soviet-German relations are definitely deteriorating…Soviet-German war is inevitable. Many reliable diplomatic sources from Berlin report that Germany is planning an attack on the Soviet Union this year, probably in the summer. There is a group in the German General Staff advocating an immediate attack on the USSR. Until now, Hitler has been trying to avoid a war on two fronts, but if he is convinced that he cannot make a successful invasion of England, then he will attack the USSR, since in this case he will have only one front ...
Answering questions, Cripps stated that the German General Staff was convinced that Germany was able to capture the Ukraine and the Caucasus, up to Baku, in two to three weeks.
On March 22, 1941, Soviet intelligence reported to the government about Hitler's secret order to suspend the fulfillment of orders from the USSR.
On March 24, 1941, the Soviet state security authorities received from Berlin and submitted to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks a message with the following content: USSR. Plans are being drawn up to bombard the most important objects of the Soviet Union. First of all, it is supposed to bombard communication bridges in order to prevent the supply of reserves. A plan was developed for the bombing of Leningrad, Vyborg and Kyiv. The aviation headquarters regularly receives photographs of Soviet cities and other objects, in particular the city of Kyiv ...
Among the officers of the aviation headquarters there is an opinion that the military action against the USSR is supposedly dated for the end of April or the beginning of May. These dates are associated with the intention of the Germans to keep the harvest for themselves, hoping that the Soviet troops, during the retreat, will not be able to set fire to more green bread.
By March 25, 1941, data were collected on the transfer of 120 German divisions to the Soviet border area.
On March 26, 1941, the Soviet state security agencies intercepted a cipher telegram from the Turkish ambassador to the USSR, Haydar Aktay, to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, which reported: “Judging by the noteworthy report that the Swedish envoy in Berlin sent to his government and a copy of which I managed to get ... the Germans believe that the action against Russia has become an urgent need. This explains the significant strengthening of the German troops located on the Russian border. It has been finally established that over the past 2-3 weeks a significant concentration of troops has been carried out on the Russian border. Swedish engineers working in the vicinity of Warsaw personally stated that German motorized units were sent in large numbers to the Russian border every night. The political circles of Berlin believe that the attack on Russia will be carried out by ground forces, and on England - by large air formations and a submarine fleet; they even say that three army groups are being prepared for this task: the Warsaw group under the command of Marshal von Bock, the Königsberg group under the command of Marshal von Runstedt, the Krakow group under the command of Marshal von Leeb. In order to ensure a quick victory over the Soviet armies, a lightning offensive plan from the three above-mentioned points will be applied. The target of this offensive will be Ukraine; it is also possible that it will spread to the Ural Mountains.
In informing you of the above information, which is trustworthy, as well as other information that has recently been circulating here that the Germans are preparing to attack Russia, I ask you to keep it secret.
In April 1941, the agent "Starshina" reported from Berlin: "In the event of a war with the USSR, the German aviation headquarters scheduled a number of points on Soviet territory for bombing the first stage in order to disrupt the supply of reserves from east to west and disrupt supply routes going from south to north ... Military operations against the USSR are supposed to begin with the bombing of these points with the active participation of dive bombers.
In addition, Soviet airfields located along the western border of the USSR should be bombed first of all.
The Germans believe weak point defense of the USSR ground aviation service and therefore hope to immediately disorganize its operations by intensive bombardment of airfields.
On April 10, 1941, the Soviet government was also sent an intelligence report on the content of Hitler's conversation with the Prince Regent of Yugoslavia, Paul, from which it followed that Hitler decided to start military operations against the USSR at the end of June 1941. In the same days, through the channels of military intelligence, a message was received from Richard Sorge, who documented the intentions of fascist Germany and the specific timing of its attack on the USSR.
At the beginning of May 1941, from the foreign agents of the Soviet military intelligence, it became known about the inspection of parts of the German troops located on the territory of the General Government and in East Prussia, and reconnaissance in the border zone by the highest ranks of the army. On May 5-7, Hitler, Goering and Raeder were present at the maneuvers of the German fleet in the Baltic Sea near Gdynia. In mid-May, Hitler arrived in Warsaw, accompanied by six senior officers of the German army, and on May 22 began inspecting troops in East Prussia.
On June 6, 1941, the state security organs of the USSR reported to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks intelligence data on the concentration of a four-million German army on the western border of the Soviet Union, and a few days later that a group of German troops stationed in East Prussia received an order to occupy by June 12 starting positions for the attack on the USSR.
On June 11, 1941, a Soviet intelligence officer, who was among the employees of the German embassy in Moscow, announced Berlin's secret order to prepare embassy personnel for evacuation within seven days and immediately begin destroying archival documents.
In mid-June 1941, with reference to information received from a reliable source working at the headquarters of the German aviation, the state security organs of the USSR informed the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks that “all German military measures to prepare an armed uprising against the USSR were completely completed and the strike can be expected at any time...
The objects of German air raids will primarily be: the Svir-3 power plant, Moscow factories producing individual parts for aircraft (electrical equipment, ball bearings, tires), as well as car repair shops ...
... Hungary will take an active part in the hostilities on the side of Germany. Part of the German aircraft, mainly fighters, is already on Hungarian airfields.
... Important German aircraft repair shops are located: in Königsberg, Gdynia, Graudenz, Breslau, Marienburg. Milic aircraft engine workshops in Poland, in Warsaw - Ochachi and especially important ones - in Heiligenkeil ... ". A source working in the German Ministry of Economy reports that the appointment of the heads of the military economic departments of the "future districts" of the occupied territory of the USSR has been made. The Ministry of Economy says that Rosenberg also spoke at a meeting of business executives intended for the "occupied" territory of the USSR, who stated that "the concept of the Soviet Union should be erased from the geographical map."
A week before the outbreak of the armed conflict, through the channels of Soviet intelligence, a sample of a phrase book distributed to German soldiers was received, the content of which betrayed the real aspirations of the leaders of the Reich. It contained, for example, such phrases: “Russ, give up”, “Who is the chairman of the collective farm? ..”, etc.
As can be seen from the above documents and facts, from the middle of 1940 to June 22, 1941, the Chekist authorities and military intelligence received through their channels extensive and reliable information about the upcoming aggression, in particular about the accumulation of strategic reserves for a surprise strike, and timely reported to the Central Committee about this. VKP(b) and the Soviet government. But it so happened that the information received through intelligence channels, as well as warnings coming from other sources, including from Churchill, did not inspire confidence in the political leadership of the country, and the biased position of I.V. Stalin prevented him from giving the current situation a correct assessment . which, as you know, predetermined the heavy losses of the Soviet people in the initial period of the war.
The brevity of the war was Hitler's alpha and omega
Numerous sources for History III Reich testify that the German economy, even by September 1939, was not ready for a long war, although absolutely all material and human resources were concentrated on solving this problem. This situation imperiously dictated to Hitler the choice of the only possible (albeit ultimately disastrous) military strategy. The German military-political leadership decided that the opponents should be crushed one by one, sequentially one after the other, in the course of fleeting military campaigns, with the involvement of the greatest possible forces and means.
The concept of a fleeting war (a blitzkrieg that had already shown its ultimate failure during the First World War) found its expression both in the general strategy of the war and in the organization, supply, combat and ideological training of the armed forces. According to Hitler and his entourage, only the blitzkrieg gave Germany the opportunity to simultaneously successfully achieve military goals and economically meet the needs of the Wehrmacht, and at the same time maintain the industries that provided very high level consumption of the citizens of the Reich.
Economic background of aggression
The German war economy was largely dependent on the use of the military and economic potentials of the occupied countries. From here she received, for example, over 40% of all iron ore imported from abroad. From 1/2 to 3/4 of all German imports important species strategic materials needed to produce high-quality steels - chromium, nickel, various ferroalloys - came from the occupied countries; almost 1/3 of bauxites came from France, Yugoslavia and Greece, while aluminum imports from France and Norway accounted for 4/5 of all German imports. In 1941, imports from enslaved countries accounted for 3/4 of the total import of copper ore, 4/5 of copper and lead, 1/2 of tin, and almost all of the imported zinc.
Having decided in July 1940 to attack the USSR, the Nazi leadership took a number of measures of a military-economic nature in advance.
In accordance with the instructions of the Chief of Staff of the OKW, Keitel, the Department of War Economy and Armaments of the OKW developed a program to build up armaments for the "Eastern campaign". On September 13 and 14, 1940, General Thomas, at a meeting with the inspectors of the military districts, outlined the reserves for the implementation of this program.
The Nazi leadership initially took it as an axiom that the fleeting nature of the war against the Soviet Union would allow it to limit itself to the planned production of military products without a total mobilization of the entire economy. The Nazi military-political leadership in September 1940 adopted the so-called "B" program for the production of weapons and military equipment for the war against the USSR. This program provided for by April 1, 1941, 200 divisions of the ground forces with everything necessary, as well as replenishing the arsenals of the Air Force and Navy with more advanced types of military equipment.
Since the second half of 1940, the most priority military production program has been the production of armored vehicles, which has doubled in a year. If during 1940 1643 light and medium tanks were produced, then only in the first half of 1941 their production amounted to 1621 units.
In January 1941, the OKW issued a directive that in the near future the monthly production of tanks and armored personnel carriers should be increased to 1250 vehicles. In addition to tanks, wheeled and half-track armored vehicles and armored personnel carriers were created, armed with 7.62 and 7.92 mm machine guns, 20 mm anti-aircraft and 47 mm anti-tank guns and flamethrowers. Their output increased from 511 in 1940 to 1332 in 1941.
Much attention was paid to increasing the production of artillery and small arms. The release of some of his samples during 1940 - 1941. almost doubled. Production increased rapidly explosives, gunpowder, shells for anti-aircraft guns, air bombs.
The construction program was carried out at an accelerated pace naval forces. In the period from September 1939 to June 1941, one battleship and two heavy cruisers left the German stocks. But the main focus was on building up submarine fleet. If in the five pre-war years 57 submarines were built in Germany, then from the beginning of World War II to June 1941 - 147.
In the first months of 1941, the growth of German armaments reached its climax. Monthly production, for example, of tanks increased in the second quarter of 1941 to 306 vehicles compared to 109 for the same period in 1940. An unprecedented increase in the production of ammunition (almost 30 times otherwise!) Made it possible to fully provide the Wehrmacht troops on the eve of the war with the USSR. The richest military trophies were added to their own stocks of weapons, military equipment and ammunition. From the defeated enemy, the Wehrmacht received weapons from 30 Czechoslovak, 34 Polish, 92 French, 12 English, 22 Belgian and 9 Dutch divisions, as well as huge stocks of various equipment and ammunition.
Thus, a complex of various emergency measures taken by the Nazi leadership allowed him to provide the Wehrmacht with all the necessary weapons and ammunition for the war against the USSR.
But all the calculations, I repeat, were made on the basis of the short-term, lightning-fast nature of the forthcoming campaign in Soviet territories. It was assumed that in terms of the consumption of weapons and ammunition, the blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union would not fundamentally differ from the previous campaigns of the Wehrmacht.
This consideration was supported by such advantages as the full staffing and mobilization of the armed forces, the abundance modern weapons and military equipment, its verification in Western campaigns. In addition, the economic headquarters of the OKW expected to capture about 75% of all Soviet industry, as well as the necessary raw materials and food.
The leaders of the German economy put on a quick "occupation of the wheat fields of Ukraine and the Caucasian oil fields”, capturing innumerable trophies.
Also in the operational plans of the Wehrmacht, much attention was paid to the remote regions of the Soviet Union (the Caucasus, the Urals), as well as the outlying zones (the Baltic and Black Seas).
Blitzkrieg Planning
On December 18, 1940, A. Hitler signed Directive No. 21, in which, under the heading “Top Secret. For command only! outlined the plan of attack on the Soviet Union. He was given the cipher name "Barbarossa". Such a nickname (translated from German as “Redbeard”) was worn by the medieval German king Frederick I, (concurrently the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation). But Hitler either forgot, or did not want to remember that this warlike ruler ended badly - during the next crusade drowned in some small river in Asia Minor ...
Hitler's directive began with the fundamentally important provision that "The German armed forces must be ready to defeat Soviet Russia in the course of a short campaign even before the war against England is over. The order for the strategic deployment of armed forces against the Soviet Union, if necessary, I will issue eight weeks before the scheduled date for the start of operations. Preparations requiring a longer time, if they have not yet begun, should begin now and be completed by 15.5. 41.
The appearance of the directive "Barbarossa" actually summed up the first stage of the preparation of aggression against the USSR, which had been actively conducted since the summer of 1940, and marked the beginning of its final stage.
By this time, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and France fell under the iron heel of the Wehrmacht. The USSR remained the last unconquered bastion on the European continent. And in essence, all the previous campaigns of Nazi Germany served as a bloody prelude to crushing, wiping the Soviet Union off the face of the planet.
With calls to destroy the USSR, Hitler spoke from the beginning of his political career. In his book “My Struggle”, which was repeatedly reprinted from the second half of the 1920s until the German attack on the USSR in 1941, it was argued that the Germans were allegedly sorely lacking “living space”, that this problem could be solved only by conquering and the settlement by the Germans of “the lands of Russia and the outlying states subject to it”, which is the only way to ensure Germany the status of a “world power” capable of fighting for world domination.
The misanthropic Nazi theory
The Nazis substantiated their global criminal intent entirely on the basis of their racist, misanthropic worldview. After all, Hitler, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, asserted that the enormous Russian empire allegedly existed solely due to the presence in it of “state-forming German elements among an inferior race”, that without the “German core” lost during the revolutionary events at the end of the First World War, it was fully ripe for disintegration.
According to their criminal racial theory, the Nazis considered Russians and Slavs in general to be an inferior race, unworthy of having their own statehood and sovereignty. A. Rozenberg and other ideologists of the Nazi movement spread fabrications that Bolshevism in Russia is nothing more than a "revolt of the Mongoloids against the Nordic culture", who set themselves the goal of "appropriating the whole of Europe".
As Soviet political intelligence reported to Moscow, Hitler, shortly before his appointment on January 30, 1933 as Reich Chancellor, when discussing with his closest associates issues related to the future capture and division of the USSR, solemnly declared:
“The whole of Russia must be divided into its component parts. These components are the natural imperial territory of Germany."
A few days after his appointment as Reich Chancellor, at the very first meeting with the high command of the Reichswehr - the armed forces of Germany - Hitler announced that his program goal was "to capture a new living space in the East and its merciless Germanization."
The conclusion by Germany and Italy of a military alliance with Japan, which had long hatched plans to seize Soviet Siberia up to Lake Baikal, in itself created a threat to the USSR on certain stage to be in the grip of two fronts: with Germany and Italy - in the west and Japan - in the east. True, Hitler and his generals, after the defeat of France and up to the Battle of Smolensk in July 1941, did not see the need to involve Italy and Japan in the campaign against the USSR, not wanting to share trophies with them. They were fully confident that they could crush the Soviet Union on their own in one lightning campaign. They initially assigned their allies under the Three Power Pact the role of covering Germany during the campaign against the USSR from the flags and rear.
Italy was supposed to serve as a counterbalance to Great Britain and divert her forces in the Mediterranean basin, while Japan would perform the same function against Great Britain and the United States in the Pacific.
In the six years before the war, Nazi Germany, which was prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles from having tanks, heavy artillery, aircraft, anti-tank artillery, etc., turned its armed forces into the strongest army in the world. This was largely the result of a policy of appeasement pursued by influential forces in Britain, France and the United States in the pre-war years, generous financial assistance, which led to the rapid "initial accumulation" of Germany's military-industrial potential.
Destroy the "life force" of the USSR in 5 months!
After the capitulation of France, the military-political leadership of the Third Reich set the destruction of the USSR as the most important goal. On July 21, at a meeting with Hitler, the commander-in-chief of the ground forces, Field Marshal V. Brauchitsch, presented his thoughts in a detailed report. According to him, the Red Army allegedly has only 50-70 "good divisions" and to defeat them "it will take no more than 80-100 German divisions, which will take only 4-6 weeks to concentrate and deploy at the Soviet border." Hitler took this report into account and ordered that further planning of the war against the Soviet Union be strictly on schedule.
In early July 1940, the management (since August 1940 - headquarters) of the operational leadership of the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW) also took up the planning of a new blitzkrieg. His boss, Colonel-General A. Jodl, believed that to defeat the Red Army, not 80-100, as Brauchitsch believed, but 120 divisions would be needed, that it would take not 4-6 weeks, but about four months, to concentrate and deploy them on the Eastern Front, which will lead to a delay in the transition to the offensive and the emergence of difficulties due to the autumn thaw and winter cold. After a conversation between Jodl and Hitler on July 29, the Fuhrer decided to postpone the start of the attack on the USSR until the next year.
The disagreements that arose among the German military leaders were removed by Hitler at a meeting on July 31 with the participation of Brauchitsch, Halder, Keitel and Jodl. Hitler announced his decision to attack the USSR not in 1940, but in May 1941.
He also set a deadline for "the destruction of the life force of Russia" - five months, always before the onset of the autumn Russian thaw.
Hitler agreed with Jodl's proposal to allocate 120 divisions out of 180 foreseen for the attack on the USSR.
The immediate goal of the struggle for the expansion of the German "living space" in the East, in his opinion, was the rapid capture of Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states.
The Fuhrer tried to interest Finland in participating in anti-Soviet aggression by promising to transfer to her part of the Soviet territory north of the White Sea.
On the basis of these instructions from Hitler, work began on drawing up new plans for the war in the East in the General Staff of the Ground Forces and the Operations Directorate of the OKW.
On January 31, 1941, the High Command of the Ground Forces (OKH), in pursuance of the Barbarossa plan, issued a directive for the strategic deployment of ground forces. The main task, according to the directive, was to "carry out extensive preparatory measures that would make it possible to defeat Soviet Russia in a fleeting campaign even before the war against England was over." This was planned to be achieved by inflicting quick and deep strikes by powerful mobile groups north and south of the Pripyat marshes in order to disunite and destroy the main forces of the Soviet troops in the western part of the USSR, preventing the retreat of their combat-ready units into the vast interior regions of the country. The implementation of this plan, it was said in the directive, will be facilitated by the attempts of large formations of Soviet troops "to stop the German offensive on the line of the rivers Dnieper, Western Dvina."
On February 3, 1941, Brauchitsch and Halder submitted this directive to Hitler, who approved it in general terms. Then the directive was sent to the headquarters of the three army groups, the air force and the navy. The headquarters of the army groups, in accordance with the directive, developed operational plans for their formations and presented them to Halder on February 20.
Reorganization and increase in the strength of the Wehrmacht
In parallel with the development of the plan of attack on the USSR, long before its approval, the reorganization, rearmament and training of the Wehrmacht began rapidly, taking into account the tasks assigned to it. new task. It must be admitted that the command of the Wehrmacht saw in the Soviet Union and its Armed Forces a stronger enemy than the Anglo-French coalition. Therefore, it decided to increase the strength of the ground forces to 200 divisions (including reserves) by the spring of 1941.
In order to prepare the Eastern Theater of Operations in June 1940, a nationwide program was adopted to expand the capacity of railways and highways from Germany to the borders of the USSR (the Otto program).
To replenish the armed forces with personnel in the Reich, reservists were called in, which made it possible to increase the size of the German armed forces from 5765 thousand people in June 1940 to 7329 thousand in June 1941.
The Hitlerite leadership, taking measures to increase the number of manpower, made the main bet on the qualitative superiority of military equipment over the USSR.
For these purposes, a whole range of measures was taken to improve the level of training of troops, equip them with new equipment, retrain command personnel and improve the organizational and staffing structure of units and formations.
Exclusively great importance For the qualitative improvement of the armed forces of Germany, 23 new mobile divisions were created, which in the Wehrmacht included tank, motorized and light divisions.
By June 1941, the maximum degree of motorization of the Wehrmacht was achieved. The total number of vehicles increased from 420,000 in March 1940 to 610,000 in June 1941.
In the construction of the Air Force, the proportion of fighter aircraft was large. It was regarded as the main means of gaining and maintaining air supremacy; it is no coincidence that it accounted for about half of all German combat aircraft. By June 1941, the German Air Force had about 10 thousand aircraft, of which 6 thousand were combat (bombers - 2642, naval aircraft - 286, fighters - 2249, reconnaissance - 823). There were also 719 transport aircraft and 133 communications aircraft.
By the time of the attack on the USSR, German aviation was inferior to the Soviet in quantitatively, but significantly surpassed it from an organizational and staffing point of view, in tactical and technical characteristics and the level vocational training personnel. It is no coincidence that on the very first day of the attack, up to 40% of the ZapOVO combat aircraft were destroyed at the airfields.
As part of the German Navy by June 1941, there were 4 battleships, 4 heavy and 4 light cruisers, 15 destroyers, 18 destroyers, 40 torpedo boats, 122 submarines, 6 auxiliary cruisers and a significant number of small warships and boats special purpose. The coastal artillery of the German Navy had 25 batteries of heavy guns and 99 batteries of medium-caliber guns.
The armed formations in the Reich included special SS troops subordinate to the SS headquarters. Organizationally, they were separate divisions, regiments, battalions and companies. These units were formed from among persons fanatically devoted to the fascist regime, active members of the Nazi party, and later from volunteers from among the conquered peoples (such was, for example, the SS division "Galicia"). These troops were better supplied, representing, in fact, the Nazi military elite.
Everything was subject main task- sudden attack on the USSR
In order to give the training of troops the greatest focus for the fight against the Red Army, in the autumn of 1940 the OKW prepared a review of the experience of the Soviet-Finnish War. It analyzed the tactics of the Soviet troops in the offensive and defense, gave specific examples of their actions, and gave an assessment. There were poor camouflage and reconnaissance, inept use of the terrain, a small depth of defense, and a lack of clear interaction between troops.
In February - April 1941, von Brauchitsch wrote a number of directives on personnel training. The Hitlerite military leader drew attention to the difficulties of waging war on the territory of the USSR in off-road conditions and brought to the attention of commanders at all levels the requirement for the need to organize comprehensive combat and logistical support for the troops.
Directives OKW and OKH required to train troops effective ways achievement of surprise.
Having the correct data on the Soviet numerical superiority in tanks, the German command gave priority to saturating its troops with anti-tank weapons. From the end of 1940, new 50-mm anti-tank guns and heavy anti-tank guns of 28 mm caliber began to enter service with anti-tank units and subunits. The number of anti-tank rifles in the troops increased by more than 20 times.
Taking into account the previous experience of the actions of tank troops for a blitzkrieg against the USSR, four tank groups were created, which were equated to armies.
The theory of lightning war developed by Prussian strategists provided for the achievement of a quick and complete victory over the enemy in one campaign. For its success, it was considered necessary by all means to achieve the surprise of the attack, to have "their supporters" in the enemy countries and skillfully use their subversive and agitational activities.
The surprise of the attack was achieved by secret mobilization, covert concentration and deployment of groups of armed forces, active misinformation, the conclusion of treaties with the countries that were supposed to be attacked, non-aggression pacts and broadcast statements of peaceful intentions.
The high pace of the offensive was ensured by the massive use of tanks and aircraft, which were considered the main means of overcoming the enemy's resistance and defeating him. The most effective and universal method of defeating the enemy was considered to be the encirclement of his troops, carried out by bypassing the flanks or breaking through the defenses and subsequent deep wedging in converging directions by strong strike groups of tank and motorized troops specially created for this purpose.
Prussian strategists attached decisive importance in the victorious outcome of the war to a strong initial blow; the offensive was considered the main type of hostilities. The main method of a strategic offensive was to break through the defenses in two sectors with its subsequent development in converging directions: the army, as a rule, broke through the defenses in one sector, developing a strike in depth or towards the flank in order to encircle the enemy in cooperation with the neighboring army.
Tank groups were intended both to break through the enemy’s defenses with their own forces and for further offensives, and to develop tactical success in operational operations, but their main purpose was always to rapidly advance into the depths of the enemy’s defenses in order to encircle his troops.
Thanks to active military intelligence, the German command at the beginning of the attack very accurately revealed the deployment of Soviet troops in the border districts, the degree of their combat readiness, the state of defensive lines and structures, the location of Soviet airfields and landing sites. The intelligence received helped the German troops to quickly break through into the depths of the Soviet defenses.
Before the attack on the USSR, the German Wehrmacht was the largest and most powerful army peace.
Already in July 1940, the transfer of German troops to the Soviet western borders was in full swing.
According to the plan “Material and technical support during the eastern campaign” prepared by the Quartermaster General of the Ground Forces, General E. Wagner on November 15, 1940, it was envisaged that the supply should be organized taking into account that 3 million military personnel, 500 thousand vehicles would be involved in this campaign , 300 thousand horses. In accordance with this calculation, by the beginning of the war against the USSR, fuel reserves of 700-800 km were created for vehicles and military equipment, two ammunition ammunition for each infantry division and three ammunition ammunition for tank divisions. This was enough for the first 10 days of hostilities.
By Keitel's order of May 12, 1941, with the introduction on May 22, 1941 of the schedule for the maximum transfer of German troops to the western border of the USSR, the efforts of all responsible authorities of the Wehrmacht were aimed at presenting the deployment of troops according to the Barbarossa plan on the Soviet borders exclusively as a major diversionary maneuver before the landing of German troops on the British Isles. Among the personnel of the deployed formations, rumors were actively spreading about "covering the rear from Russia" and "about a distracting concentration in the East." False orders were issued in many formations for their transfer to the West. The German landing on the island of Crete on the orders of Keitel and with the active personal assistance of the Reich Minister of Propaganda J. Goebbels was presented in the world media as a "dress rehearsal for the landing in England."
In order to hide the truth about their true intentions towards the USSR, the Wehrmacht command until the last moment kept the vast majority of the Wehrmacht personnel in the dark about them. By order of the OKW dated May 8, 1941, unit commanders, and non-commissioned officers and privates, were informed of the upcoming attack on the USSR only eight days before it began, literally on the eve of the start of hostilities.
On April 30, 1941, at a meeting between Hitler and the command of the ground forces, the decision to launch Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941 was finally approved.
Not a war, but a struggle of ideologies
The Hitlerite leadership worked out in advance plans for waging against the USSR not an ordinary, but a merciless war of annihilation, its economic exploitation and dismemberment, as well as a plan for the colonization of its European part.
Hitler repeatedly stated that the war against the USSR would be "the exact opposite of a normal war in the West and North of Europe", that its ultimate goal was "total destruction" and "the destruction of Russia as a state".
The upcoming war, the Fuhrer proclaimed, would not be an ordinary war, but a “struggle of two ideologies” with the “use of the most brutal violence”, that in this war it would be necessary to defeat not only the Red Army, but also the “control mechanism” of the USSR, “to destroy the commissars and the communist intelligentsia” , party functionaries and in this way destroy the "ideological bonds" of the Russian people.
It should be emphasized that almost all representatives of the Wehrmacht's senior command staff (with the exception of a handful of oppositionists who considered Hitler an adventurer and were preparing assassination attempts against him) were themselves guided by the Nazi worldview by the beginning of the war against the USSR, perceived Hitler not only as their supreme commander in chief, but also as an ideological leader , almost a messiah. They dressed his instructions in the form of orders to the troops. And although later some of the military leaders criticized Hitler (mostly for strategic and operational-tactical blunders), in 1941 almost all of them only welcomed the instructions and orders coming from the Imperial Chancellery or the Fuhrer's Headquarters in Rastenburg.
And it is no coincidence that on April 28, 1941, von Brauchitsch issued an order "Procedure for the use of the security police and the SD in the formations of the ground forces." This savage order emphasized that military commanders, together with the commanders of special punitive units of the Nazi security service (SD), are responsible for carrying out actions to destroy communists, Jews and "other radical elements" in the rear front areas without trial or investigation.
In turn, on May 13, 1941, the chief of staff of the OKW, Field Marshal V. Keitel, issued a decree "On special jurisdiction in the Barbarossa area and special powers of the troops." This document generally removed from the soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht any responsibility for future criminal offenses in the occupied territory of the USSR. They were ordered to be ruthless, to shoot on the spot, without trial or investigation, anyone who would show even the slightest resistance or sympathize with the partisans.
Further, on June 6, 1941, the OKW headquarters issued an "Instruction on the treatment of political commissars" ("Order on Commissars"). Soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht were ordered to exterminate on the spot all political workers of the Red Army who were captured.
“Pump everything we need out of the country…”
The Hitlerite elite attached great importance to the development of plans for using the Soviet economic potential for waging war. At a meeting with the command of the Wehrmacht on January 9, 1941, Hitler stated that if Germany "gets into its hands the incalculable wealth of vast Russian territories", then "in the future it will be able to fight against any continents."
Specific plans for the plunder of the wealth of Russia were developed by the economic organization Vostok, created in March 1941.
She was to be in charge of all questions of the economic use of the occupied regions of the USSR. The supreme leadership of this organization was carried out by the Plenipotentiary General for the implementation of the four-year plan, Reichsmarschall G. Goering, through the “Eastern Headquarters of the Economic Leadership” he created in Berlin, headed by his representative, Secretary of State P. Kerner. This governing body for the purpose of camouflage, before the start of Operation Barbarossa, it appeared under the name Oldenburg. To enforce his decisions, the "Eastern Economic Headquarters" was also established in advance, which during military operations was to work closely with the quartermaster general of the ground forces.
In the “general instructions” of the Vostok organization dated May 23, 1941, which appeared at the Nuremberg trials, on economic policy in the region Agriculture it was said that the goal of the military campaign against the USSR was "to supply the German armed forces, as well as to provide food for the German civilian population for many years." It was planned to realize this goal in the most cannibalistic way: by "reducing Russia's own consumption" by "cutting off any supplies of surplus products from the southern black earth regions to the northern non-chernozem zone", including such industrial centers like Moscow and Leningrad.
At one of the meetings of the Vostok headquarters, it was directly admitted: "If we manage to pump out everything that we need from the country, then tens of millions of people will be doomed to starvation."
"... do not stop if there is an old man or a woman, a girl or a boy in front of you..."
Detailed plans for the dismemberment of the USSR and the establishment of German rule on its territory were carried out by the Reichsfuehrer SS and the head of the police G. Himmler, appointed "Reich Commissar for the Strengthening of the German Nationality", and the head of the NSDAP Foreign Policy Department A. Rosenberg, whom Hitler in April 1941 appointed "plenipotentiary for centralized development of issues in the Eastern European space. First of all, they made plans to include almost the entire European part of the territory of the Soviet state into the Third Reich, to destroy or turn its population into slaves.
Already two days after the start of the attack on the USSR, on June 24, 1941, Reichsführer G. Himmler instructed the head of the planning department under the Reichskommissar for strengthening the German nationality, Oberführer SS, director of the Institute for Agrarian Affairs and Agrarian Policy of the University of Berlin, Professor K. Meyer-Hetling to prepare a plan for the expulsion of Slavs and Jews from Central and of Eastern Europe in order to "free up space for settlement by Germans." This plan, later called the master plan "Ost" ("East"), was ready on July 15, 1941. It provided for from the territory of the Czech Republic, Poland, the Baltic republics, Ukraine and Belarus, where, according to Meyer's calculations, 45 million people lived, to evict 31 million people “undesirable in terms of race” beyond the Urals, and to “Germanize” the rest, that is, turn them into slaves of the German masters. On the lands cleared in this way from "inferior" racially native inhabitants, it was planned immediately after the end of the war to settle 840 thousand Germans who proved their purebreds, and then within 25-30 years two more waves of Germans numbering 1.1 and 2.6 million people.
One of the developers of the Ost master plan, Dr. E. Wetzel, a referent for racial issues in the Eastern Ministry of Rosenberg, presented Himmler with a document in which he categorically stated that "without the complete destruction" or weakening by any means of the "biological strength of the Russian people" to establish "German dominance in Europe" will fail.
And it is no coincidence that the soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht on the eve and during the "eastern campaign" were given memos that said: "... kill every Russian, Soviet, do not stop, if in front of you is an old man or a woman, a girl or a boy - kill, this will save yourself from death, you will secure the future of your family and be glorified forever.
Believing in the invincibility of the Wehrmacht, megalomaniac German strategists, even before the attack on the USSR, began to develop further plans for the struggle for the establishment of German world domination. Expecting in the near future "to eliminate the influence of the Anglo-Saxons in North America”, they already in 1940 hatched plans to capture Iceland and a number of other islands in the Atlantic in order to turn them into military bases for unleashing a war against the United States in alliance with Italy and Japan.
The draft OKW directive No. 32 “Preparation for the period after the implementation of the Barbarossa plan” dated June 11, 1941 provided that after the end of the war against the USSR, the Wehrmacht would begin to conquer Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, and also Turkey, if it dared to resist, would capture Gibraltar and British possessions in West Africa, and then resume the "siege" of England by naval and air forces and still prepare a landing on the British Isles (which Stalin expected in vain) in order to force Britain to surrender. And it is no coincidence that the day of the attack on the USSR - June 22, 1941 - turned into a national, truly great holiday for the British: thank God, this cup has passed them!
Starting from that day, during the Second World War, an armed struggle unfolded, unprecedented in scope and fierceness, on the outcome of which the lives and destinies of the peoples of the whole world depended.
Especially for "Century"
The article was published as part of a socially significant project implemented with state support funds allocated as a grant in accordance with the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 11-rp dated January 17, 2014 and on the basis of a competition held by the All-Russian public organization Society "Knowledge" of Russia.
the theory of fleeting war with the achievement of victory in the shortest possible time. Created in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century, this tactic of the German military command failed in the First and Second World Wars.
Great Definition
Incomplete definition ↓
Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg" - "Lightning War"), a military strategy developed by the Nazi command of warfare, which was used by Nazi generals during the French, Polish and Russian campaigns.
For the first time the theory of "blitzkrieg" was proposed in 1934 by the French colonel Charles de Gaulle in the book "Vers l´armee de metier". Instead of endless military columns traveling only a few kilometers a day, instead of a fixed front line, which was common in the military strategy of the 1st World War, when the opposing armies, burrowing like moles in the ground, showered artillery shells on each other, he proposed to make the main emphasis on mobile motorized parts. The Hitlerite command, having worked out de Gaulle's general strategy more thoroughly and in detail, successfully applied it in the first stage of World War II. The technique of using "blitzkrieg" was as follows.
Initially, the "fifth column" conducted training in the enemy's rear, collecting intelligence and disorganizing the enemy's actions. This was followed by a rapid massive bombing strike, in which the enemy air force was destroyed while still on the ground, and all enemy communications and vehicles were put out of action. This was followed by a bombing attack on enemy troop concentrations. And only after that, mobile units were introduced into battle - motorized infantry units, light tanks and self-propelled artillery. Following them, heavy tank units entered the battle, and only at the end regular infantry units were introduced with the support of field artillery. Having successfully used this tactic during the war in France and Poland, Hitler decided to use it when attacking the Soviet Union. However, despite initial success, the blitzkrieg tactics ended in complete failure.
Great Definition
Incomplete definition ↓
Blitzkrieg, "lightning war" (German Blitzkrieg, from Blitz - lightning, Krieg - war), a fleeting victorious offensive war. The term "blitzkrieg" was introduced into use in the initial period of the 2nd World War in Nazi Germany to refer to its fleeting victorious military campaigns against a number of European countries. Initially, it had a propaganda character. Subsequently, it became widespread, entered into scientific circulation and began to be used to reveal the special features of the military strategy of Germany in the 1st and 2nd World Wars, its operational art in the 2nd World War.
The "blitzkrieg" strategy at the beginning of the 20th century was put by Germany as the basis for plans for a war for world domination with opponents who had a much larger total economic and military potential - France, Russia (USSR), Great Britain and their allies. It envisaged that Germany would in turn defeat the powers opposing her in a short time and thereby achieve a common victory, without being drawn into a protracted war of attrition on two or more fronts that was hopeless for her. In the 1st World War, Germany failed to implement the Blitzkrieg strategy due to its lack of advantages over opponents in the mobility of troops and the quality of weapons. In the 1920s and 30s, as a result of the rapid development of military equipment, motorization and mechanization of the ground forces and the emergence of new types of troops (tank, parachute, aviation, etc.), the idea of "blitzkrieg" was developed in Germany not only as a strategic installation , but also as a method of operational art, ensuring the implementation of this installation in practice. Achieving a quick victory over the enemy began to be regarded as the result of the material and psychological disorganization of his defense by sudden massive strikes on decisive axes of highly mobile troops, which have more advanced weapons and military equipment, better combat skills and are guided by the latest achievements of military art. The "blitzkrieg" method, in particular, provided for: preemption of the enemy in the concentration and deployment of troops; achieving complete superiority in forces in the main direction; ensuring operational-tactical surprise; inflicting the most powerful first strike in order to achieve decisive success already in the first battles; destruction of enemy armed forces by dissecting them and encircling them with rapidly operating large groupings of tanks and motorized infantry with the active support of aviation and the use of paratrooper units; disorganization of the rear and command and control of enemy troops by sabotage and terrorist groups; refusal to comply with existing interstate agreements, as well as norms international law governing the laws and customs of war. The "blitzkrieg" method was successfully put into practice by Germany in 1939-1941 during the attack on Poland, Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Yugoslavia and Greece. It was the basis of the war plan against the USSR (see "Barbarossa"). The defeat of the Wehrmacht near Moscow in December 1941 was a devastating blow to the German strategy of "blitzkrieg" and demonstrated the limited effectiveness of "blitzkrieg" as a method of operational art. In the future, Germany's attempts, using the "blitzkrieg" method, to turn the tide of the war against the USSR in its favor (the offensive of the Wehrmacht on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front in the summer - autumn of 1942) and defeat the allied forces in Western Europe (see the Ardennes operation 1944-45) were not successful.
Lit.: Anfilov V.A. Blitzkrieg failure. M., 1974; Messenger Ch. The art of Blitzkrieg. L., 1976; Wischljow O. W. "Ein Unterpfand des Sieges"... und der Niederlage // Deutsche Umbrüche im 20. Jahrhundert. Köln u.a., 2000.S. 353-362.
Surrounded, the French fight to the last bottle of wine, the British to the last pack of tea, the Germans to the last bullet, the Russians to the last man.
Joke about World War II.
Blitzkrieg (German Blitzkrieg, from Blitz - lightning and Krieg - war) - for us Russians, this hard and clanging German term is firmly associated with 1941. Blitzkrieg is a terrible defeat, when dive bombers ironed defenseless troops from the air, and German tank wedges tore our defenses. Hundreds of thousands of dead, captured and missing, planes burning at airfields, tanks and guns abandoned along the roads. Huge lost territories and the enemy near Moscow, Leningrad and on the Volga.
At the same time, if we digress for a second from the fact that we were defeated, the blitzkrieg is probably the most brilliant victory in the world military history. Entire countries (Poland, France) were wiped off the political map in a matter of days. We (the USSR) could not be erased, but never before in history in such a short period of time has there been such a terrible death of so many troops and the loss of so much military equipment and property as in 1941. We Russians survived and, at the cost of a huge, superhuman effort, won the Second World War, but the losses of 1941 remained literally irreplaceable. Who knows what it would look like modern world without the defeats of 1941?
So let's take a closer look at what a blitzkrieg is, how it worked, and why the Germans did it so effectively. Starting in 1942, we also made "boilers" for the Germans, only the scale is somewhat different. The figures are inaccurate, but near Kyiv in 1941 the losses of Soviet troops ranged from 452,000 to 700,000 people, near Vyazma in the cauldron we lost 600,000 people only as prisoners. In 1942, during the most famous battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet army surrounded the 6th army of the Wehrmacht, which amounted to about 250,000 soldiers and officers, of which about 90,000 were captured.
Strategic goal blitzkrieg has been described and formulated many times. Blitzkrieg is not a flight of fancy of the Fuhrer of the German nation, and not a free improvisation of talented German generals. Blitzkrieg is the brainchild of necessity and the result of understanding the loss of the First World War by Germany, the main lesson of which for the Germans was that Germany did not have enough resources for a long war on two fronts. So, it was necessary to find a way to beat opponents one by one in record time. Beat until the moment when they can launch the military industry at full capacity, put under arms all those liable for military service, and coordinate their actions among themselves. Fight as long as there is raw material for military factories and with a limited supply of gasoline for tanks, planes and trucks. And the remedy was found - lightning war.
Now more and more often the opinion flickers that the First and Second World War these are not two isolated conflicts. Too small historical period separates the first and second global conflict in the history of mankind and are too similar " characters' on one side and the other. In fact, there was one World War with a brief period of calm, during which the warring parties carried out reconnaissance of their forces and accumulated resources for a new fight. But if we accept this point of view, we will have to take the next step and understand that for Russia the First World War of 1914, Civil War 1917 - 1923 and the Great Patriotic War of 1941 are links in the same chain that cannot be understood by considering them separately. We will encounter their mutual influence more than once on the pages of this article.
Blitzkrieg tactics this is primarily an attack, as the most rational way conduct of hostilities. Now they often argue which is more effective: defense or attack. The advantage of defense is one of the postulates of Suvorov's (Rezun's) theory that if the Red Army had been on the defensive in 1941, there would have been no catastrophe in the first months of the war. It's hard to judge, but I'll refer to my own experience in martial arts. By the way, in this area human activity There are also many apologists for the benefits of defense, ranging from the classic defensive style of aikido to numerous styles of self-defense. Defense is stronger and more effective than attack if the direction of the blow is known. You know what the enemy is up to in the fight, you can escape from the blow, capture, catch in the oncoming traffic, and so on. There is information about the direction of the offensive of enemy troops and trench lines, minefields, anti-tank ditches will stop the enemy's attack. Most a prime example – Kursk Bulge. The direction of the attacks of the German troops was known in advance, and the offensive got stuck in our defense (although on the southern flank they still practically broke through it). One problem. An experienced opponent will never show where he will attack. Before the offensive, the direction of the main attack is masked by all possible ways: disinformation, covert movement of troops, camouflage, and so on. The most desirable scenario is when the defending side does not expect an attack at all, as in June 1941. Desirable, but not required. Blitzkrieg worked against France, which itself declared war on Germany 8 months before the German offensive. In addition, it is impossible to defend everything equally, especially in the Eastern European theater of operations. Near Vyazma, Soviet troops defended the highway, since the Germans, as a rule, advanced along the roads, but the blow was delivered off-road in a completely different place. As a result, 4 armies were surrounded, and the direction to Moscow turned out to be open. A breakthrough in defense even on a local sector of the front in World War II led to the collapse of the entire front as a whole. Why?
Traditionally, the belligerent army was tasked with either destroying the enemy troops or capturing a certain territory. Blitzkrieg is not so much a war against enemy troops as a war against their lines of supply and communications. Simplified, blitzkrieg technology can be reduced to the following operations:
- Breakthrough of the enemy front in a narrow area (optimally two breakthroughs on the flanks of the attacked grouping).
- Introduction to the breakthrough of tank, motorized and motorized infantry units.
- An attacking maneuver deep into enemy territory (access to operational space) with the aim of encircling and cutting off the enemy from bases. Pockets of resistance are bypassed or blocked whenever possible. Nodal transport points, crossings, infrastructure facilities are captured and held. Airfields, warehouses and stores with military equipment, command posts, communication lines are being destroyed.
- Deprived of ammunition, gasoline, food, fodder, medicines and command, the troops in the boilers quickly turn from an organized military force into simply crowds of armed people who then either surrender or are subject to destruction.
With such a development of events, a meeting engagement with enemy troops, especially on prepared defense lines, is undesirable, since it slows down the pace of the operation and leads to a loss of initiative. If the battle cannot be avoided, then the division of roles is approximately the following: aviation handles the enemy’s defense from the air, tanks complete the rout, and the infantry holds what they have captured.
You can't take a word out of a song. If we compare the behavior of troops in boilers, then the comparison will not always be in our favor. Yes, the Russians fought even when resistance lost all meaning (except, perhaps, for the time spent on liquidating the encircled units). At the same time, the organization was almost completely lost. The troops in the cauldrons were left to their own devices. The principle was in effect: the salvation of the drowning is the work of the drowning themselves. The German 6th Army, surrounded by Stalingrad, almost completely retained its command and structure. Maintained discipline (even shot for looting). The supply of troops by air and the removal of the wounded were organized. In fact, these measures turned out to be insufficient, but our encircled units did not have even that.
What can the defending side oppose to blitzkrieg. There are two main ways. Building barrier lines of defense in the direction of attack and counterattacks against enemy communications. Building a defensive line is not easy. It is necessary to determine the direction of the strike, and then pull up the reserves in the right place. The situation is changing too quickly (the speed of tanks on the roads at that time was about 40 km / h). It is very difficult to calculate the direction of advance of a tank wedge. For example, the main transport artery of the defenders - Railway with 4 stations. The attacker can go to any station, and the supply will be interrupted. It is impossible to cover all the stations and the defender is forced to guess where to send the main forces. As it is easy to calculate, the probability of success in such a situation is 25% for the defender, and 75% for the attacker. Counterattacks are also difficult. The attacker is prepared in advance, he knows where his supply line will run and in what places it needs to be defended. The counterattack is being prepared in a hurry, in conditions of a sharp shortage of time. Therefore, the counterattacks of the Red Army in 1941, as a rule, ran into the prepared defense of the German infantry and artillery and were not successful.
The idea of blitzkrieg is beautiful. And not only the Germans are so smart. Encirclement, as a means of destroying enemy troops, has been known in martial art since the defeat of the Roman army by Hannibal at Cannae. The theory of a deep offensive operation was also developed in the Soviet Union. Why didn’t we succeed, and if we did, then not on such a scale? There is no need to talk about the British, Americans or Japanese. They did not even set such goals, adhering to a different model of war. And here we come to the next point: Blitzkrieg tools. If you ask this question to a person slightly familiar with history, he will answer without hesitation: tanks. Perhaps he will add more: airplanes. Very well if he clarifies: dive bombers. From the Soviet version of the war, we knew that the Germans crushed us thanks to a surprise attack and a numerical superiority of tanks and aircraft, despite the heroic resistance of our troops. It's a shame, of course, but more or less understandable. But then perestroika came and we were surprised to learn first from the books of Suvorov (Rezun), and then from official statistics, that we had 23,000 tanks against 3,500 German ones. That in terms of the caliber of the guns and the thickness of the armor, the German Pz were quite comparable to the BT (the German Pz-III has better armor, the BT-7 has a larger gun caliber, speed and power reserve) and were inferior to the medium T-34 and heavy KV tanks. It is pleasant, of course, to know that the Germans had weak tanks and few aircraft, but this was followed by a bitter conclusion: we were defeated, having an overwhelming quantitative and qualitative superiority. By God, the Soviet propaganda was better. In it, at least, we looked like heroes who were vilely attacked by a superior enemy, and not klutzes who did not know how to properly use their own potential.
In fact, reducing blitzkrieg tools to tanks is at least simplifying the situation. It's like reducing the house to a concrete box with holes for the windows. But in order to be able to live in a house, it still needs to have window frames and doors, electricity, water, heating, interior decoration and much more. The situation with the tank is somewhat reminiscent of the search for a miracle weapon that at one moment can decide the fate of the war. As we will see below, the blitzkrieg tools include a tank, a dive bomber, an armored personnel carrier, a walkie-talkie, an officer, and even such a banal thing as a truck. One can also argue for a long time that these tools of the Germans were imperfect, but they, in fact, met the requirements that were placed on them. Such successful things as blitzkrieg are not done with bad tools.
Aviation. The dive was invented by the Americans as a means to increase the accuracy of hits when attacking enemy ships. The bomber entering the peak in the lower part of its trajectory dropped bombs and hit the target from a low altitude. The Germans used this idea to destroy small objects (tanks, vehicles, artillery crews, pillboxes, and so on) on the battlefield. The Junkers Ju-87 "thing" became the same symbol of the blitzkrieg as the Pz. On account of the German "record holder" for the dive bombing of Rudel Hans-Ulricht 519 tanks, 150 self-propelled guns, 4 armored trains (there were also ships, including the battleship "Marat"). The actions of German aviation were so successful that sometimes the enemy on the defensive lines was almost completely suppressed before the tanks approached. But here's what's interesting. In the USSR, the Pe-2 dive bomber was designed and put into production, which was seriously ahead of the Ju-87 in speed (549 to 310 km / h), in bomb load, in armament, and in a number of other indicators. But that's just ... it was not used for diving. Prior to 1943, non-aimed bombing from level flight was preferred. There were even official orders forbidding dive bombing. What is the problem? Very simple. The qualifications of our pilots were not enough to get out of the dive in time. Through one fought "Stalin's falcons." Against an average of 200 flight hours in the Luftwaffe, our pilots were thrown into battle sometimes after 8-10 hours of training.
Not everything is clear with the destruction of aviation in the first hours of the war. We have been taught to think that our planes were burned by a sudden raid on airfields. But it turned out that many airfields survived the first bombardments, but the regular attacks that followed them throughout June 22 did their job. So, sorry, what the hell? The first strike on an unprepared sleeping airfield is understandable, but when the first raid has already taken place and it has been survived, then take the fighters into the air and arrange a warm welcome for the weakly protected Ju-87s. If, even knowing that the war was already underway, we could not organize the defense of airfields, then “something is not right in the Danish kingdom.”
tank forces. The tank itself was invented by the British during the First World War. Here are just a few similar armored slow-moving English monsters Mk and medium-sized nimble German Pz. And it's not just about the time of creation and technology. Their purpose was different. The British designed the tank as a means of breaking through the defense. The Germans gave the tank a slightly different function. In blitzkrieg, tanks are a tool for attacking deep into enemy territory. In this situation, the tank needs not so much thick armor and a powerful gun as reliability and a decent power reserve. But with this, the German tanks were fine. Directly heavy tanks for breaking through the enemy's defenses ("Tiger I"), the Germans appeared only by 1943 and underwent baptism of fire on the Kursk Bulge.
As for the number of tanks directly (15,000 in the first strategic echelon against 4,500 German, Romanian and Hungarian ones), then, as mentioned above, in blitzkrieg tactics, a meeting engagement is generally undesirable. If the Germans were aiming for a head-on collision with enemy tanks, they would have been smashed to smithereens back in France. The French armored forces in 1940 were not inferior to the German ones, but in some ways even surpassed them. The German calculation was based on the fact that 4 light tanks behind enemy lines with a warhead and gasoline cost more than 15 Soviet (including medium and heavy) tanks without shells and gasoline near the border.
To what extent does the effectiveness of weapons or armaments depend on the tactics of war chosen or imposed by the enemy? And, neither more nor less, 100% depends. Another personal example. In his youth, he had ranks in boxing and wrestling, that is, he knew how to work conscientiously both at close range and in capture. After that I went to karate. Tactics in karate was reduced to maneuvering at a long distance: a step - a blow - a step back. For four years of practicing martial arts, I managed to apply the skills of boxing and wrestling a few times. Neither shock series from two hands, nor throws were in demand within the framework of karate tactics. And only a change in tactics with the transfer of the center of gravity to close and medium distances led to the creation of a style of hand-to-hand combat, where hand techniques and grips became an organic whole.
Supply. It was said above that this is one of the most important results of the blitzkrieg is the interruption of the supply lines of the defending troops. It just doesn’t take into account that the attacking troops also need to be supplied. It is impossible to count on the capture of enemy stores, today they captured fuel, but not tomorrow, and tanks will stand up where gasoline has run out. It is clear that it is impossible to organize the supply of horse-drawn tanks moving forward. We need trucks. In practice, after the German tank wedges, supply lines stretched, along which cars with everything they needed went in columns. And here we come to the second instrument of blitzkrieg, much less noticeable at first glance - the presence of a vehicle fleet in the troops. In 1941, the number of vehicles in the German troops was about 600,000 units, in the Red Army of the first echelon 150,000. It was not by chance that the Germans removed almost all vehicles from Europe, including even school buses.
The picture emerges even more clearly if we compare the regular divisions of the Wehrmacht and the Red Army. In the infantry division of the Germans, there were 902 vehicles for 16,859 people, in the Soviet division for 10,858 people, 203 vehicles. By a simple calculation, we get that one car provided 18 German and 53 Russian soldiers. No less gap in tank troops. In a German tank division, there were 2,127 vehicles for 196 tanks. The composition of fur. Corps of the Red Army included 375 tanks and 1,350 vehicles. It turns out that one German tank was accompanied by 11 vehicles, 1 soviet tank- 3.5 cars. So try to organize a blitzkrieg similar to the German one with such a lag in the possibilities of supplying troops. Do not blame the Soviet command for short-sightedness. The first factories for the serial production of motor vehicles were built in 1930-1931 during industrialization, that is, 10 years before the war, and by 1941 the age of the German automobile industry was already more than 50 years old. The very fact of industrialization in a peasant country can be considered a miracle, but it was not possible to cover such a qualitative and quantitative lag. And it is no coincidence that one of the main items of Lend-Lease since 1942 was 100,000 American trucks from the Studebaker Corporation. The total number of trucks delivered to us exceeds 400,000 (!).
Motorized infantry. A tank in World War II is an ideal means of attack. It was the tanks that formed the tip of the German wedges. But tanks are not very suitable for defense, and there are not enough of them to organize the entire line of encirclement. Therefore, the "walls" of the boilers are formed by infantry and artillery. The infantry holds key points (shverpunkts), repels attempts to break through the troops trapped in the boiler and counterattacks from the outside, and ensures uninterrupted supply of tank formations. But ordinary infantry on foot will not be able to keep up with the tanks. Again, trucks are needed, or, preferably, armored personnel carriers. The armored personnel carrier has higher cross-country ability and the soldiers are protected from a surprise attack by the enemy. In terms of the number of produced semi-tracked armored personnel carriers of the Hanomag company (SdKfz 251 and SdKfz 250), Germany was in second place in the world, second only to America. Before the war, such machines were not produced at all in our country.
Everyone saw from newsreels or feature films how Soviet soldiers ride on tank armor. The so-called "tank landing". In essence, this is an attempt to solve the problem with the delivery of infantry to the place of hostilities in the conditions of a chronic lack of vehicles. Unfortunately, a bad example is contagious. More than half a century has passed since the war, and our soldiers still ride uncovered on the armor of an infantry fighting vehicle, more designed to protect against nuclear explosion than on a mobile and maneuverable war.
Connection. Any planning basis military operation- information about the enemy, which is obtained by intelligence. Blitzkrieg is a mobile war in which the situation changes every hour. Yesterday the road was clear, and today the enemy has already put up a barrier of anti-tank artillery and infantry in the way of the tank wedge. A reconnaissance group crawling on its stomach along the rear (approximately this is how we still imagine the work of a reconnaissance officer at the front) will not help here. How to get information? The exit has been found. Reconnaissance was carried out by aviation by photographing the area or by direct adjustment of the actions of the ground units of the Wehrmacht. The solution is logical: more can be seen from above, and the aircraft's maneuverability is immeasurably higher than that of a ground-based observer. One nuance. Such reconnaissance requires constant communication between the aircraft and ground forces. Simply put, we need walkie-talkies, both in aviation and in ground units. Unfortunately, it was impossible for us to organize such a connection. There were simply not enough walkie-talkies.
Blitzkrieg is a combination of aviation, tanks and motorized infantry. These three branches of the military must be very well coordinated. That is, we again run into the problem of communication between the troops. I can’t speak for the entire Wehrmacht, but the walkie-talkies were on all German tanks, allowing the squad leader to correct the actions of his subordinates in battle. In Soviet fur. radio corps were only on command vehicles. But how in the conditions of battle to lead the rest of the crews? You can laugh (this is a sad laugh), but it was planned to give orders ... with flags. That is, the commander of the unit had to get out of the hatch right in the process of attack, possibly under fire, and give the necessary signal. It remains to be seen what he had to do if the tank crews leading the battle did not notice the waving flags. Run on tanks with a sapper shovel and knock on armor. The humor is that such a case really was near Prokhorovka.
The first months of the war between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht are reminiscent of a fight between a large, strong, but blind man with a nimble, trained and, most importantly, sighted enemy. The peasant's fist is a pound - it will hit, it won't seem enough, but it just can't hit it. The enemy does not want to be substituted under the fists. Have you, dear reader, ever tried to fight blindly with a sighted person? Believe me, an unforgettable experience.
Human factor. People are at war. Banal truth. People control tanks and planes, fire guns and rifles, and last but not least, people make decisions. In a mobile war, any initial preparations are of little value. The situation is changing too quickly and unpredictably. It is impossible to direct such a war from headquarters. "Any plan is correct until the first collision with the enemy" - so the Germans said. In this situation, the decisions taken by the officer directly on the battlefield are of particular importance. That is, the success of the operation largely depends on the courage, literacy, and initiative of the junior officers. The Germans specially taught officers to act in conditions of lack of time and information about the enemy, based on the fact that the enemy also did not have enough time and information to organize defense. It's time to compare with our officers. With courage, the Russians have always been fine, there is no doubt about it, but with the rest ... Officers in Germany are a professional caste originating from the Prussian officers. As in any profession, in the officer environment there are channels for the accumulation and transfer of knowledge. Simply put, the German officer is the result of many years of targeted selection. Most of our officers of 1941 are ... yesterday's peasants. Now people often talk about Stalin's purge of the army in 1937. Indeed, many officers were shot (although much less than the media claimed after perestroika). But the decisive blow to the officer corps of Russia was dealt in 1917, when the tradition that originated with Peter the Great was interrupted. A little more than two decades after the Civil War, a little more than two decades were allotted for the creation of a new officer corps. They did what they could, but it didn’t work out very well, judging by the fact that, reluctantly with a proletarian heart, they had to hire former tsarist gold-chasing officers (military experts).
History has no subjunctive mood. It makes no sense to guess how the country's development would have gone without the October Revolution, but I am sure that people of such courage and military talent as Anton Denikin, Sergei Markov, Mikhail Drozdovsky, Vladimir Kappel and tens of thousands of other officers with the experience of the First World War would not be superfluous on and on the fronts of World War II.
With initiative, we are also not all right. It is clear that an officer on the battlefield is responsible for his subordinates. An unsuccessful order leads directly to the death of people. At the same time, it must be understood that the enemy also acts with all the strength of his forces and means. Ideal solutions in such a situation simply do not exist, and only those who do nothing do not make mistakes. In other words, there must be a very delicate balance between responsibility for one's decisions and the understanding that no one is immune from defeats and failures. But with responsibility in the Red Army there was a clear overkill. The commander was responsible for the result of the battle in the literal sense of the head. At the same time, objective circumstances did not matter much. So they answered for the disaster of June 1941, the commander western front Pavlov and his chief of staff Klimovskikh, who were shot by a military tribunal. In practice, this approach led to the fact that most commanders sought, if possible, to shift responsibility to the higher command (by the way, the situation has survived to this day). If, however, it is still necessary to make a decision, and the result is unsuccessful, then, without waiting for the tribunal, they shot. So the commissar of the Southwestern Front, Nikolai Vashugin, shot himself in the temple after an unsuccessful counter-offensive near Dubno in June 1941.
It remains to deal with the most psychological difficult question: compare German and Russian soldiers. Let's not judge what is more effective - German accuracy and respect for the order (the German formula - first of all, the soldier is obliged to fulfill the order, if there are options for fulfilling the order, he must choose one in which he will remain alive) or Russian contempt for death and non-standard thinking. Every nation has its pros and cons. But there are also objective indicators that do not depend on nationality. Germany by 1941 was an industrial power with the highest level of education in Europe. The USSR, in the past the Russian Empire, an agrarian power for a decade before the war, was forcibly drawn into industrialization. Around the same time, illiteracy was eliminated, that is, most the population was not taught algebra and physics, but simply read and write. How important is it? Bismarck said that the Franco-Prussian war was won by a German schoolmaster. His opinion is worth listening to. Under this chancellor, the Germans did not lose a single war, and the German Empire grew out of the kingdom of Prussia.
A peasant is a good soldier, or rather an infantryman. He is unpretentious, healthy and used to living in nature, and it is not difficult to teach him to shoot and dig in. But try to train a pilot, a tanker, an artilleryman from a peasant. It has already been said about the fact that our pilots fought, not being able to get out of the dive. In 1941, our tankers abandoned vehicles due to breakdowns, as they did not know how to repair them in the field. After that, tank crews began to be taken to tank factories so that they could see on the spot how their car was assembled and at least understand a little about its structure. The Germans prepared the calculation of the anti-tank gun many times faster than us, because the German guy did not have to explain what the angle of the barrel in degrees is. And our happiness is that Russians learn very quickly, especially from their own mistakes.
We were accustomed to the idea that the fighting spirit of the Red Army was always on top. But everything is not so clear. The fighting spirit of the army directly depends on the spirit of the people as a whole, and one of the main components of the national spirit is the unity of the army, people, government in achieving the goals. The Germans were very good with this. In the beginning, Hitler rallied the Germans with the idea of revenge for the defeat in the First World War and the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles. Then Nazism gave the German people the idea of racial superiority, the German intelligentsia - the idea of a united Europe (if you look closely, the creation of the EU today is a direct implementation of one of the Fuhrer's ideas). german army won the most impressive military victories in the history of Germany (the defeat of the leading military power on the continent - France in two weeks is something with something). In a word, the slogan "One people, one state, one Fuhrer" (German: Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer) was not just an ideological slogan, but a concrete result of the policy of the Third Reich.
Now let's look at the Red Army and the Soviet Union. In 1917 in Russia there was October Revolution. In no country in the world did the coming to power of the communists lead to such a split in society, and nowhere was communism offered such rabid resistance as in Russia. For six years, from 1917 to 1923, the Civil War lasted, in which the Russians fought against the Russians. The Soviet government has won. But how many were in the Red Army of those whose relatives, friends, friends were killed on the civil fronts, shot in the Cheka, immigrated from the country, arrested and exiled to camps, dispossessed, decossacked, and so on? When the war gained momentum, when the enemy reached Moscow and Leningrad, when it became clear that the very existence of the Russian people was under threat, the eternal Russian principle worked at the subconscious level: “to die, but not to let the enemy native land". But in June 1941, not all Red Army soldiers were eager to die for the Soviet Union, which was alien to them, and for Comrade Stalin personally.
We reasonably consider traitors people who served in the ROA (Russian liberation army), in RONA (Russian liberation people's army), in the Cossack camp and in other formations who fought on the side of the Wehrmacht. But in no war that Russia waged in its thousand-year history, there were so many Russian people who fought on the side of the enemy. Try to imagine that Patriotic war 1812, the French form a combat unit from the Russians, attacking the Russian redoubts on the Borodino field. That Napoleon lacked the imagination for this? But he recruited Italians, Poles, Germans for a trip to Russia. But for some reason neither Russians, nor Ukrainians, nor Tatars, nor the Balts succeeded. In 1914, when the First World War began, the Germans would not have refused such help either. It is always good when not one's own, but someone else's blood is shed on the battlefields. But in less than 30 years, hundreds of thousands of people were ready to fight the Soviet regime with weapons in their hands. There are two options here, either at the beginning of the 20th century in Russia, as a result of some kind of mutation, a whole generation of traitors to the Motherland grew up, or the October Revolution, the Civil War, repressions, dispossession and other measures Soviet power led to a split in society unprecedented in the history of Russia and the loss of moral guidelines. In a word, it's time to remember the words of the Sermon on the Mount: "Judge not, lest you be judged."
In our time, blitzkrieg, like the entire Second World War, has become a part of history. What practical conclusion can be drawn from the information of half a century ago? When we consider causality, it is easier for us to think that one cause causes one effect. So we want to believe that such a phenomenon as a blitzkrieg has one, but a serious reason (for example, a miracle weapon or human factor). In fact, any phenomenon in life is the result of not one reason (even if it is important and significant), but a combination of a number of reasons and prerequisites.